Lateral
by afterados
Summary: Wishing to correct past mistakes, a blue-haired boy is sent to a world all too similar to his own. But armed with knowledge he can't repeat, and a power no longer his own, what difference can he truly make?
1. Chapter 1

_Chapter 1_

The blue-haired boy couldn't breath.

Well, technically, he hadn't been able to breath for many, many years. But he still froze and stared at the smirking figure in front of him, stunned beyond comprehension. He realized that his mouth was hanging open, his visible left eye had widened almost comically, and that he probably looked very stupid, but he couldn't help himself because…

"What did you say?" the boy asked weakly.

The silver haired girl's smirk just grew wider. "Oh, I think you heard me _perfectly _well, Minato."

Yeah, "Minato" had heard. But he couldn't wrap his head around what the girl hovering above him had said. He slightly dropped his head in shock, resting his gaze on one of the stars surrounding the duo in the black ether, while he slowly digested the girl's words. After who-knows-how-many years of watching the world, hanging by his chains, and after ten years of his living life without her… He'd finally be able to see…

"How?" he croaked out, his "voice" having not been used for several years. "How's she there? That's not possible, it's been so long, and she's…"

"Has it? Has it _really _been that long? And Minato, surely you do not believe that your universe is unique?"

"Maybe. Something tells me I thought wrong."

The girl in front of him snorted. "Indeed. It was… just a wish upon a star."

"…That was _terrible_, Elizabeth."

"But you liked it," Elizabeth noted with a grin, while Minato fought the small smile playing on his lips.

"Perhaps_,_" he replied. "But you didn't answer my question."

"As they say on Earth, 'ditto.' If I gave you the chance, would you return?"

"Do you need to ask?" Minato replied matter-of-factly. "Of course I would, especially if I can see her again."

Elizabeth's smile faded at that last comment. "…Minato, she is a wildcard. I am sure you know what that means."

The boy jerked his head up at that statement. "Two wildcards? That's possible?"

The girl cocked her head as she looked at him, her smile returning. "Are you alright, Minato? This is the most emotion I've _ever _seen out of you."

Minato narrowed his eyes. That smile was forced, she had avoided the question, and the joke was totally untrue _and _barely funny. "Elizabeth."

Elizabeth sighed and looked away from the flickering boy sitting against the bottom of the golden gate, below his chained ashen body. "There is only one wildcard for this incident, Minato. It belongs to Arisato Hamuko."

"…And I don't suppose you could sneak it to me instead?" The boy closed his eyes while his companion slumped a little and flashed him an apologetic smile. "Hm. Then I'll just have to stop Ikutski and Strega before she has to make that decision. At least it's her, I couldn't think of someone more worthy to hold it."

"I do not believe you are being fair to yourself, Minato."

The boy lightly scoffed, the movement barely shifting his head. "Please. Don't you remember how much I relied on my personas for social links?"

"Everyone could use some help."

"And I needed _all _of it. Trust me, Hamu's much better suited for it." His face shifted into a very soft smile, one that he hadn't worn in many years. "She'll be a better leader than me, too."

The silver-haired girl tilted her head and raised one eyebrow at him. "Now _that_, I'll have to completely disagree with."

"Nope, you're wrong," Minato replied with a smirk.

Elizabeth rolled her eyes and sighed fondly at the boy's insistence. "Perhaps. I'll look forward to seeing if you're right."

She raised her hand up to snap her fingers, but stopped before she did anything, a morose expression slowly twisting her face.

"Minato," she said quietly, yellow eyes slightly scrunched in sympathetic pain, "I know you said you want to do this, but… do you _really_ want to?"

After a moment of eye contact, Minato broke his gaze away, looking down and letting his blue locks cover both eyes. He knew exactly what she was referring to.

The first few years after his semi-apotheosis had been pure hell. Part of the curse of being the seal was the ability to watch over the world indefinitely, but the inability to interfere. He'd been tortured by watching his friends suffer, especially in the first few months after his death, but even after that it had been hard to watch everyone live their lives without him. Being able to go back and fix his past mistakes was exactly what he wanted to do, but he wouldn't be able to stay there forever. One way or another, he'd have to return back here, but… that would mean leaving them again, too.

The boy stared impassively at the stars. Seconds ticked by.

"Minato…?" Elizabeth asked.

"…_zzzzzz_…"

"Minato!"

The boy smirked at the girl's exasperated noise as he feigned sleep, although there was a different shape to his lips. She'd really developed more of a personality over the years, and he couldn't help but feel a little proud that it was _he _who had helped shape it. That pride seeped its way into his smile.

After a moment, he donned a more serious look. "I know what you're thinking, Elizabeth. But nothing's going to stop me from helping them. And saving _her_." He gazed up at the girl levitating above him, fixing her with a look of determination. "I _will _do this."

Elizabeth smiled down at him, with just a tinge of sadness, before closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. "Right. Well, if that is your decision, then let us get started, shall we?"

She snapped her fingers, and a dark hole opened several feet away from the boy, its appearance causing the surrounding area to shake for a second.

Glancing around, Minato asked, "Elizabeth? You never told me, but how exactly is this supposed to work? How will I get there?"

"Oh, I will explain," the girl assured her old friend, "but I would like to do so only once, so I shall wait for the other one to come."

Minato raised an eyebrow. "The other one…?"

"Yes. Although you are not a wildcard, you are still our valued guest in the velvet room, and I must therefore be your attendant. Sadly, this means that I am unable to take your place here. And surely you did not think we would leave this gate unattended while you were away?"

"Wait, Elizabeth! You know I won't place this burden on anyone else's-!"

Ignoring the boy's complaints, the girl dressed in blue clapped her hands, and a figure stepped out of the hole, glancing around in surprise at the new surroundings.

Minato's eyes widened and his words died in his throat. He knew that person well.

"Well then," Elizabeth said with her trademark smile, now morphing into a smug grin at the others' shock. "Shall we begin?"

* * *

**AN: Uh... I dunno what exactly happened the first time I uploaded this, but hopefully its fixed now...?**

**Anyways, thanks for reading! This chapter is more of a prologue, so I'm uploading this and chapter 2 at the same time. I'll see you in the next part!**


	2. Chapter 2

_Chapter 2_

The gently rattling train quietly shot through the night, speeding towards the approaching silhouettes of skyscrapers and glow of city lights. Outside the darkened window, a still lake was clearly visible, partially lit up by the nearly full, waxing moon, eerily large in the near midnight hour.

None of this mattered to the newly awakened blue-haired boy, who was staring mutely in shock at his 16-year old twin sleeping on his arm.

That girl, who had tried valiantly to stay awake to get a glimpse of their new/old home, was now loudly snoring and slightly drooling onto the boy's shoulder. Loosely clutched in her hand was a paper map of their destination, with annotations ("Ramen place here! Omnomnom :D" "Music store for Mina here!") and doodles (dogs with big, shiny eyes being the most common) scrawled all over the page, almost to the point of it being unreadable. Her disheveled red scarf and skirt, rumpled beige sweater, and bed-head hair all spoke of a long travel; something the boy assumed was true from his own experience.

But again, little of the details mattered to him. After watching the dozing girl for only a few seconds, he broke out into a smile, a _grin_ so huge and out of character for him that it would have given anyone who knew him a heart attack. Because he was back. God, he was _back_, and now, he had his sister back, too.

A sudden metallic voice blared out in the still silence, interrupting the boy's reverie: "_We're sorry for the delay, folks. Any complaints you have may be directed to the Tatsumi Port Island rail management office, at extension 5346. Now arriving at the final stop: Iwatodai. Again, now arriving at the final stop: Iwatodai. All passengers please exit at this stop."_

The voice awoke the girl from her slumber, and she blearily tried to rise, only stopped by her brother's unusually tight grip on her arm. Realizing this, he quickly removed his arm after toning down his smile, and the girl stretched her arms upwards and gave a huge yawn, again breaking the silence of the mostly empty train. Blearily rubbing the sleep from her eyes (but not the drool from her chin, the boy noticed fondly), she took in her surroundings.

"Mina!" She spoke grumpily to the boy. "I told you to wake me up _before_ we got to Port Island!"

Minato raised one eyebrow at her, before replying in a much quieter voice, "Technically, I did."

The boy's sister huffed and picked up her suitcase. "_Technically_, it was the train, and I wanted to actually _see_ the Island before we got there. And don't say that I just did!" she ordered as Minato opened his mouth to interrupt, a small smirk growing on his face.

The auburn-haired girl rolled her red eyes at the self-satisfied look on her brother's face, and walked over to the doors of the train as it slowed to a stop. The boy let out a small chuckle, brushing a few blue strands towards his hair-covered right eye, before picking up his distinctively smaller suitcase and following the girl to the door as it opened.

Side by side, they stepped out of the train, walking out of the rail station's loading area before stopping to look at the girl's barely legible map. "Alright, so we're supposed to go to this dorm here, on the other side of the Island," the girl muttered, pointing to a building in the middle of a hand-drawn, round Shiba Inu, "And the closest way to get there should just be to follow this road until we get to the main street, then follow… Hey! Mina, wait up, you impatient jerk!"

By the time the girl realized her brother had walked away, he was already half a block down the road. She jogged to catch up with him, before swatting him on the back of his head. "Ow! Hamu, it's straight this way."

"Oh yeah, and how do you know that?" she asked, eyeing her brother with over-enthused suspicion.

"I already looked at the map," he lied fluently.

"Well, why couldn't you tell me that earlier?"

"This is quicker."

She blinked at him, before turning away with a "hmph!" and striding a few steps ahead, with her head held distinctly up and away from the boy. With her eyes off him again, he allowed a contented smile to spread across his face as he watched his sister's over-exaggerated movements.

Without warning, Minato's sight suddenly blurred and stomach lurched, and he stumbled headfirst into a pole with a _crack_. Grabbing the pole as stars danced across his vision, he realized that the world had turned entirely green, and had the presence of mind to numbly think _dark hour._

Then he vomited.

"Wha… what the… Why'd the lights go off… What's going on…? Mina- Mina!" The petite girl gaped as her normally unflappable brother emptied his lunch on the sidewalk. "A-Are you okay…?!"

Dry heaving and shaking as he tried to get control of himself, the boy managed to nod and wave off his nervous sister. Gripping the pole tighter, he righted and reoriented himself, automatically planning the quickest route to the dorm through the back alleys, before reminding himself he wasn't _exactly _supposed to know that yet.

"Mina…? Is… is that…?" his sister whispered, pointing to a puddle of red muck that had earlier been a puddle. She hesitantly stretched a foot towards the seemingly sticky gunk, but before her foot reached it, an ear-splitting roar echoed from somewhere on the other side of the city, freezing her in place.

Something suddenly grasped her shoulder, and she spun her head around with a gasp, nearly throwing the offender, her brother, to the ground with the sudden movement. She gave a quick sigh of relief before giving a rapid apology, which the boy again wove off.

"Hamu," he said in a strained voice while gripping her shoulder tightly (mostly to support himself, he realized to his chagrin), "Dorm. Now."

She took a deep breath, before nodding after the boy let her shoulder go and started walking in the direction indicated by the map. Meanwhile, the taller boy tripped once, then twice, to his sister's growing shock, but finally got control of himself before the girl could offer her help. As they walked (and stumbled, in the boy's case) down the green and red stained street, the girl started noticing the black, slightly shining boxes hovering a foot above the ground, boxes that looked exactly like-

"Hamu," a quiet voice interrupted her thoughts before she could finish them, "we need to go _now_." Taking another deep breath, this one much more shaky, she briefly closed her eyes, swallowed, and adjusted her suitcase's strap before continuing to walk. She flinched once as she stepped in a sticky, red puddle with a loud _squelch_ echoing in the imposing silence of the city, but otherwise, the twins' trek to the dorm was relatively quiet.

Soon after arriving, they noticed that the dorm's first floor lights were on, in contrast to the rest of the city. Letting out a huge sigh of relief, the girl bounded up the stairs, scarf fluttering behind her, and jumped the last three steps at once before spinning and grinning down at her brother, still struggling with the third step. "Well, someone's sure tired today!" she chirped at him.

He glowered up at her (tiredly) in response.

She outright laughed at his weak look, before turning and opening the door with a flourish. "I'll see you inside, Mina! Try not to let those stairs get to you!"

The boy just shook his head as his bright counterpart closed the door behind her. After conquering the stairs, he all but collapsed next to the door, gasping desperately (_and pathetically_, he thought bitterly) for air. He sat there for a few moments, simply breathing heavily, and thinking to himself how he'd _better_ pull himself together, because there was no way he'd be of use to anyone like this. After a long moment, he finally regained enough energy to drag his exhausted frame upwards. Peering into the window, he noticed that the lights had gone back out, which had to mean that the contract was signed, which meant-

"_Who's there?!"_

The boy cursed as he heard the frightened cry of his former (future?) ally and friend. In time, he would immediately trust the person she'd become with his life, but the girl she was now… that was a different story. Taking a quick breath to steady himself, he forcefully opened the door, hoping to take the focus off of his sister.

His plan worked beautifully. As he slammed the door open, the second girl in the room, a brunette in a spotless pink cardigan tightly gripping a handgun at waist height, squeaked in surprise. Apparently forgetting about the steps she was standing on, the girl tried to move to face the new entry, but ended up letting out another cry as her foot slipped and she went tumbling down the stairs… and landed directly on the other girl.

"Gah!"

"Oof!"

The two of them went down hard, the brunette flailing while trying to maintain her grip on her gun, while the other attempted to stay upright using her large suitcase. Tragically, they failed miserably in both regards, the suitcase-laden girl falling on top of it while her new accomplice's gun slipped from her hands and went skidding over to the boy, who stopped its momentum with one foot.

"Takeba-" another female voice projected, but was cut short to a dumbfounded silence as one last girl, an impeccably styled redhead, appeared and viewed the scene. In the resulting silence, the lights of the building suddenly turned back on, revealing the suggestive position of the two girls. Both blushing heavily, they scrambled to get off of each other, with the girl in pink rushing over to the redhead's side while the boy's sister immediately went back to him.

Again, silence reigned in the room as the redhead and the blue-haired boy made bemused eye contact with each other. Before long, the redhead broke the quiet with a hesitant, "I… apologize? For any inconveniences here. I wasn't expecting you two to get here so late. My name is Kirijo Mitsuru, I'm something of the unofficial student administrator of this dorm. This here is Takeba Yukari, she's a third-year like you two, and is relatively new to this dorm as well. I must apologize for forgetting, but your names are…?"

Recovering much quicker than her cardigan-wearing counterpart, the girl next to the door replied "Oh! We're the Arisatos; I'm Arisato Hamuko, and the quiet one is Arisato Minato. Nice to meet you both!"

Mitsuru nodded with a small smile and a "Likewise," while Yukari made a noise resembling a mouse that had been stepped on. Assuming that it was an agreement for both of them, Hamuko smiled widely, before turning to her brother, who had stooped down to pick up the silver gun by his foot.

"I believe this is yours?" he asked Yukari in subdued tenor, holding the weapon sideways, muzzle away from everyone. She quickly nodded an affirmative, scuttling over to snatch her firearm and stuff it in its holster before retreating back to her side of the room.

"That's a unique thing to be carrying," Hamuko noted brightly. "Is it, like, some weird initiation thing? Or is it just personal choice? Er, not that it wouldn't be fine either way, but, y' know, it's a gun, so-"

"Hamu," Minato interrupted, "I'm sure the gun is fascinating, but I'd enjoy going to our rooms now."

"He's right, I'm afraid," Mitsuru elegantly cut in from across the room, before Hamuko could rebut. "We do have school tomorrow, and getting no sleep before the first day wouldn't be wise. Yukari and I can show you to your rooms, if that would be alright?"

As expected, Hamuko immediately replied in the affirmative, while Minato simply picked up his and his sister's bags. Across the room, Yukari finally got her cheeks down to a lighter shade of red and plastered on a somewhat embarrassed smile as the boy walked over with both bags, before everyone followed the student administrator up the stairs.

As the party walked up, Hamuko piped up again. "You know, Mina, I _can_ walk with my bag."

"Let's hold off on the more complicated activities until tomorrow."

"Hey! I only fell down _once_, and that was when someone fell on me," Hamuko huffed, "I was doing fine walking with it earlier when _you_ were throwing up and dizzy!"

She blinked, while in front of her, the other two resident girls traded subtly sharp looks, before tacking on, "Er, what was that, by the way? Are you feeling alright?"

"Yeah."

Hamuko sighed at his characteristically short answer. "If you say so…"

Meanwhile, the other two girls had stopped at the building's first floor, and turned around to face the new arrivals. "This floor is the boys' floor. Takeba, would you mind showing Arisato to his room?"

Slightly relieved to not have to accompany the girl who she had fallen on earlier, Yukari quickly nodded while Minato handed Hamuko's luggage back to her. The duo started walking down the hall, but not before a happy, "Sleep tight, Mina!" reached their ears. Barely remembering to keep his usual cool countenance, Minato just lazily waved back without turning around, as he heard the other two girls continue up the steps.

A few more doors down, Yukari signaled to the room at the very end of the hallway before they arrived, explaining while handing her companion a room key, "Well, this is your room for right now, so, uh, get comfy! Any questions?"

Minato briefly considered indulging his darker side and asking how often she was going to jump his sister, but settled on just quietly shaking his head.

"Alright then, well, we usually wake up around 6 to make it to the train on time, so could you set your alarm for then? So, uh, I'll see you in the morning!" She walked off with a slightly hesitant wave, which Minato half-heartedly returned.

After unlocking the door and lugging in his suitcase, Minato promptly closed it again, before falling onto his bed with a groan, hidden cameras be damned. Elizabeth had been right, of course (when _hadn't_ she been?): seeing two of the people he'd left behind had hurt, and it was almost as tiring as seeing a grown up Hamuko. He quietly thanked whatever divinities existed that his normal stony personality was so easy to fake.

However, he mused as he kicked his loafers off, even more disquieting to him than seeing his friends again was knowing what they'd have to fight. And, yeah, _fight_: he couldn't convince S.E.E.S. to not kill the arcana shadows. At least, he couldn't without proper, physical proof, and he knew exactly where that proof was: Yakushima.

Takeba Eiichiro's final message, the _true _one, was the quickest and simplest way he knew to convince everyone of the truth. So, he had to keep everyone alive until they went to Yakushima, and he could steal the video. And to keep them alive for that long, they'd need to kill some Arcanas. So, not a perfect solution by any means… but it'd do for now.

He'd planned on worrying about the future for longer, but his body soon took over and put him to sleep, not even giving him the time to fully get onto the bed, change out of his casual clothes, or relock his door.

* * *

Upstairs, Yukari and Mitsuru had regrouped in the Control Room. The monitors showing a feed from hidden cameras placed in the Arisatos' rooms were turned off, to maintain some semblance of privacy for the twins when no surveillance was necessary. Despite this, Mitsuru was still pouring over the lower monitors from her plush, red velvet armchair, adding notes to the new duo's files from what she had gathered from meeting them.

_Although the Arisato twins are uniquely similar in facial structure, they completely oppose each other in personality,_ Mitsuru primly typed up. _While Arisato Minato is reserved and quietly attentive, Arisato Hamuko seems to be more talkative and friendly. Additionally, Arisato Minato displayed all the normal signs of Dark Hour adjustment_, _but Arisato Hamuko displayed none. Is it possible that some people are naturally adjusted to the Dark Hour?_

She leaned back, fingers still hovering over the keyboard, as she pondered her last words. Yukari briefly cut in at this junction, asking, "…Do you think they belong here? Like, do you think they actually have the potential?"

Mitsuru briefly flicked her eyes over to her vaguely anxious under-classmate, who was currently scuffing her feet on the carpet, before replying, "We have reason to believe that they both are."

Yukari stopped her feet for a moment, looking up at the redhead. "…But you can't say why, Senpai?"

"Actually, I'm not sure why either," Mitsuru replied, fully turning towards her dorm mate and ignoring the slight animosity that Yukari had let slip, "My Father was awfully tight-lipped about them, but insisted that they come to the dorm. And while it's unclear if they both have the potential for persona, I'd be very surprised if the girl didn't, at least. I've never seen someone take so quickly to the Dark Hour. And even if the boy doesn't have the potential, he is awake during the Dark Hour, so the safest place for him to be is still here."

Yukari nodded slowly as Mitsuru turned her attention back to typing. If Kirijo Takeharu, Mitsuru's Father and head of the powerful Kirijo group, didn't even tell _Mitsuru_ (who he told _everything_ to) what he knew about the twins, then there was probably a good reason for keeping it quiet.

But that didn't mean Yukari had to like it.

Sighing while rubbing her eyes, she told her superior, "Well, Senpai, if you don't mind me leaving, I think I'd better go to bed. I'm only going to get a few hours of sleep as it is." Although she grumbled the last phrase mostly to herself, Mitsuru hummed in agreement, and nodded an affirmative to the younger girl. Yukari nodded her thanks in response before exiting the room.

As soon as she heard the click of the door being closed, Mitsuru immediately lost her perfect posture and regal expression, slouching and sighing and running a hand through her hair, ruining its styled and immaculate look (to her delight; she reallyhated how _perfect_ her hair looked when fixed). Staring blankly at the monitor, she let her mind wander, as it was all too rare to get a moment like this totally to herself.

Despite herself, she quickly started focusing on work matters again. Yukari's hesitance and slight distrust in the twins' potential wasn't totally unfounded; it was surprising to find any persona users in the area, let alone two, and to find one with a natural resilience to the Dark Hour… well, the chances of winning a Kirijo group-sponsored lottery were greater. At least, that's what her Father would probably say.

And speaking of the siblings… After debating it for a moment, Mitsuru decided to check in on her newest schoolmates. After turning on the cameras, she chuckled at seeing their nearly identical positions in their respective rooms: half-on, half-off the bed, and still in their casual clothes, with their respective luggage propped up against their beds. Earlier, she had guessed that the two were very similar despite their outwardly opposing personalities, and this all but proved it. Twins, indeed.

Turning off the cameras again, she stared morosely down at her keyboard before sighing, placing it in her lap, and kicking off her heels. Updating profiles wouldn't get done by itself, and there was no way she could (or would) ask anyone else to do it for her.

Unfortunately, by the time the updating was finally finished, the sun had started to come up. Mitsuru had no choice but to stare glumly at the approaching daylight before entering the bathroom to put on her make up, fix her stupid hair, and paste her regal expression back on before heading to school.

* * *

**AN: Hey everyone, how's it going?! I'd like to welcome you all to Lateral!**

**First off, thanks so much for taking the time to read this fic. I've been a lurker on for ages, but I just recently got up the courage to start writing a fic of my own! That said... you can probably already see the similarities between this fic and Reset, New Game Plus, Spiraling Destinies, or another of the millions of time-traveling Minato fics out there. Obviously, they were a huge part of my inspiration for this fic, but my plan is to _not_ follow the original story as much as I possibly can. I mean, I love persona 3 fics as much as the next guy/gal, but there are only so many times I can read through the whole "Junpei/'Last night'" spiel, regardless of how good you are as a writer. It should be clearer as I continue writing, but basically I'm mostly avoiding the major plot lines that we've all read dozens of times, and changing the few ones that I leave in so that they're hopefully still fun to read.**

**If you have the time, please drop me a review or send me a PM with comments, suggestions, criticisms, and _even flames_! That's right, _I just went there._**

**See you in a week(ish)!**


	3. Chapter 3

_Chapter 3_

Minato was used to rude awakenings. One of the perks of growing up at a public orphanage was waking up falling in mid air, only becoming fully lucid when a freezing lake broke the fall (Lake-tossing, especially in winter, was a favorite prank of the older kids). Being woken up by a disgruntled, underpaid orphanage staffer with a bucket of ice was a little worse, and _that _was only barely beaten out by waking up to the dorm's alarm system alerting the approach of a shadow outside Tartarus.

However, even the blaring shadow alarm system had nothing on his sister.

"MIIIII-NAAAAA, IT'S TIME TO WAKE UP NOW!" _**WHAM WHAM WHAM **_"COME OOOON, SLEEPYHEAD, WE NEED TO GET GOING TO SCHOOL!" _**WHAM WHAM CRASH **_"DON'T MAKE ME START USING MY OTHER HAND!"

Groaning as his sister's din became too loud to ignore, he slid off his bed and stumbled over to his suitcase. As he rubbed his eyes, he blearily searched for the release button, and found it after poking random spots all over the front of his luggage. Unfortunately for him, he had forgotten that it was facing the wrong direction. The offending case hit him square on the nose as it opened with a _click_, followed by a _thud_ as Minato fell over, spread eagle across his floor.

"First the steps, and now this? Wow, Mina, you're really getting your butt kicked by inanimate objects, huh?"

As his eyes finally cleared up, Minato saw his sister standing in his doorway (which he belatedly remembered he forgot to lock the previous night). She grinned down at him, already dressed in her school uniform with her arms crossed triumphantly. Slightly behind her was Yukari, also already dressed in her trademark pink cardigan, peering over Hamuko's shoulder. "You sure you're alright? Maybe we should hold off on the more complicated activities until tomorrow, huh?"

Closing his eyes with a sigh as his own joke was thrown back at him, Minato waved the girls off as he got up and closed his door. He shuffled over to his suitcase and changed into his school uniform that he had packed in his luggage, but not before glancing at his room's clock and promptly narrowing his eyes.

Walking back into the hallway where Yukari and Hamuko were waiting, Minato fixed Hamuko with a look of pure annoyance completely invisible to people who hadn't known him all their life. "Why did you wake me up at 5:45?"

Hamuko simply smirked and started walking towards the end of the hallway, but not before replying "Ah, well, I know your tendency to sleep in, Mina, so I figured I should wake you up early so we could make it to school on time. And I would have just told you to set your alarm earlier, buuuut… this is quicker."

Minato stared at her retreating form for a moment, but then just sighed another time before following her. Even after being hit over the head with _another_ repeat of one of his jokes, he couldn't be mad at Hamuko. The girl was just too perky. Hell, he'd guess that even _Shinji_ wouldn't be able to stay mad at the happy girl for long.

The trio made their way down the stairs, past the dorm's empty main lobby and through the intricately designed doors onto the streets outside. Even though daylight had barely broken, the lights in most windows were already on, and people were already starting to flood the streets. Dressed in everything from traditional business suits to doctor's coats to school uniforms, the only thing that everyone had in common was the Kirijo Group emblem, present on each outfit in various sizes.

Hamuko looked around in wonderment at the waking city. Unfortunately, she didn't see a doctor with greying-brown hair hustling to the hospital, and bumped into him with a squeak. "Sorry!" she hastily said as the doctor said the same before hurrying onwards. Staring for a moment at the Kirijo Group symbol on his back, she perked up with a sudden realization. "Hey, isn't 'Kirjio' Mitsuru-senpai's family name? Is she related to the head of the company? And where _is_ she, by the way?"

"Yeah, she's the daughter of the company head Kirijo Takeharu; she isn't the dorm's student administrator and student council president for no reason," Yukari replied to the barrage of questions. "And she already left, she usually takes her motorcycle to school."

The twins exchanged glances at Yukari's offhanded comment about Mitsuru's credentials. That was… a strange remark to tell to people you had just met. Even though Minato knew about Yukari's distrust of Mitsuru, that comment seemed a little more forward than normal. Was that going to be a difference between his time and this one?

Meanwhile, Hamuko had simply shrugged, and Minato automatically blinked lazily in response, both deciding to accept the comment (although for different reasons) as they continued towards the monorail. Soon enough, while Hamuko continued to exclaim and babble like normal about the city, they all arrived at the station and boarded the train.

A familiar _bong _from the sound system sounded as the doors slid shut. The train jerked forward, and Yukari lost her balance and tumbled into Hamuko, prompting both of them to yelp (loudly) and quickly jump away from each other. Minato, still solidly standing, looked on with invisible amusement. "Is this going to happen often?"

Yukari blushed. But Hamuko was having none of it, glowering and punching her brother in the arm. "_No_, Mina," she reprimanded, "you can only tease people _after_ you're friends with them. If you want to make friends, you've gotta be _friendly _first!"

She then promptly turned to Yukari. "If he ever gets like that, feel free to punch him or kick him or something. He usually only reacts to those kinds of things."

Yukari giggled as her blush started to fade away. "That's how you teach him? Remind me to never give you a dog to train…"

"I'd never do that to a dog! Besides, _any_ dog is better trained than Mina."

The brunette laughed out loud at that, and Minato restrained himself from rolling his eyes as he turned his attention to the window, rubbing his arm where his sister had assaulted it.

After a few more moments, the train rounded a bend and Gekkoukan High School came into view in all its Kirijo-sponsored glory. The school itself was a multi-storied building, with an industrially designed exterior and Parthenon-inspired pillars at the entrance, which was painted a polished white that could easily blind a blind man. The school's light colors contrasted with the blooming pink cherry blossoms and bright green lawns outside, which were already flooded with students. Dressed (for the most part) in identical black and white uniforms, they all mingled with each other, no doubt catching up with their friends about their summer break.

Most of these details were apparently lost on Hamuko. "Oooh"-ing with her face and hands pressed up against the window, she exclaimed, "Wow, it's so _shiny_!"

Minato couldn't help himself this time, snorting and rolling his eyes while he heard Yukari stifle a laugh from the enchanted girl's other side. Looking up and shooting dirty looks at her two companions (while leaving smudge marks in the shape of her face on the window), Hamuko grumbled something about "no one having any respect for enthusiasm these days," before returning to her previous position.

A few minutes of Hamuko sulking later, the train pulled up to the station. Eager to make it to class before the first bell, a flood of Gekkoukan students stampeded through the station, leaving the trio of juniors as some of the last to leave the train before its doors shut with a _snap_. Weaving through students, they carefully tread their way past the shops of Port Island Station and the outer strip before arriving at Gekkoukan's pristine gates.

As they walked to the front doors, Yukari explained, "Since you guys are new, you should go to the Faculty office to ask about your homerooms. The office is in the hallway on your left as you walk in, so it should be easy to find."

"Alright, we'll check it out! Thanks, Yukari-chan!" Hamuko chirped appreciatively. "Say, what homeroom are you in? Maybe we're in the same one!"

"I'm probably in 2-F with Ms. Toriumi, like last year. And… yeah, I hope so!" Yukari replied as the two girls smiled at each other. Behind them, Minato mentally groaned. Leave it to Hamuko to become good friends with someone she'd only known for a total of a few hours. And that was including sleep time.

As his two classmates wove goodbye to each other, Minato started to move away from the office's direction. "Uh, Mina," his sister called, "left is _this_ way!"

"I have to check something," he replied. "Could you find what my homeroom is?"

Sighing dramatically, Hamuko threw her hands up in mock despair. "Fine! But you'll have to talk with your teachers _some day_, y'know…" Minato only half listened as the _tak-tak _of her shoes headed away from him, as he quickly skimmed the student roster taped to the wall looking for names he recognized. Most of the names he immediately knew, and he mentally nodded. It seemed like so far, things weren't quite as different as he'd feared. But before he could fully check the list, a hand came down on his shoulder. He turned in slight surprise to see his sister, pouting in full force.

"Minaaaa… we're not in the same homeroom! Now I'm going to worry about you the _whole class_!" Before he could even reply, she started to adjust his (admittedly sloppy) uniform, straightening his ribbon and brushing lint off of his shoulders. "Now, Mina," she lectured, "I want you to be on your _best behavior_ during class, and I expect you to make some friends too, ok?"

Stepping back with a grin, she viewed her handiwork: a much more neat uniform, and a much more disgruntled Minato. "You're in homeroom 2-E with Mr. Ekoda, but there's an opening ceremony we need to go to first, so remember: _best behavior_, alright?"

Without another word, the energetic girl pranced down the hall towards the auditorium. Minato was left staring at the open space (thinking about his unexpected change in classrooms) while several other students looked at him with narrowed eyes in disguised and not-so-disguised jealousy. Recovering quicker than them, Minato just shook his head (after all, being in 2-E could be a good thing) and followed his sister at a much slower pace, ignoring the whispers echoing from behind him.

Soon enough, he ended up at the wide auditorium and quietly opened the sliding door. He spotted his dull-looking, brown-haired teacher on the other side of the room, head tilted back and mouth slightly opening and closing. Ekoda was… napping?

Minato's opinion of his new teacher skyrocketed.

Ekoda awoke with a snort as the student drew closer, and then heaved a small sigh as he saw the new student. "I assume you're the new kid, Arisato Minato?"

The addressed boy nodded, and Ekoda continued. "Alright, then go find a seat here and follow me after the assembly so we can get to homeroom on time. I'll introduce you before I start class there."

Minato obediently walked over to an empty seat, pointedly disregarding some of the looks and raised eyebrows directed his way. The bell rang and the blubbery school Principal waddled up to the podium. Almost without pause, he began to drone on about something or other, undoubtedly of _utmost importance to the entire school_. Minato silently labeled it as _utmost crap_ and promptly ignored him.

As he drowned out the Principal's speech (almost too easy to do), the blue-haired boy's thoughts drifted to the problems that would crop up the next evening. The main problem was the arcana Magician's appearance. From what Elizabeth had said, Minato knew that his sister would be the new wildcard. But because he hadn't asked (and because Elizabeth, even in her infinite wisdom, could still be more forgetful than Junpei on a bad day), he didn't know the circumstances leading up to her powers. If she could summon Thanatos, great. But he wasn't goig to take that chance. And even if he _was_ sure of her powers, he wasn't about to put his sister through that night's terror if he could help it.

Then there was Akihiko's injury. While in retrospect, it was nice to have some forced responsibility to shape up the new recruits (Minato included), he knew that everyone would be much safer with the extra protection the veteran Persona user would give. Minato was confident in his own abilities, but extra help never hurt, especially when he was trying to keep the entirety of S.E.E.S. safe.

Killing the shadow would solve both problems easily… but he simply couldn't. He didn't have the power necessary to summon a persona strong enough to kill the giant shadow, and even if he could, that would lead to too many questions about his fighting abilities. Most importantly, he'd need to steal an evoker to fight the shadow. He'd need to _steal something valuable _from a dorm operated by _Kirijo Mitsuru_. There were certainly quicker and less painful ways to commit suicide, he thought with a shiver.

After an ungodly amount of time, Minato's thoughts were interrupted as the Principal closed his _magnificent _speech, and most of the student body began waking up. Deciding he'd better follow his new teacher, Minato rose with a yawn and trailed Ekoda out of the Auditorium, up the stairs, and into classroom 2-E, where he stood next to the literature teacher's desk. As the bell rang again, Ekoda stood up, rapping his knuckles on the desk to quiet the class. "Settle down, everyone. Before we start talking about the _glorious_ Heian period, I'd like to introduce Arisato Minato. He's a transfer student, but he'll be staying here for the rest of the year, so I expect you all to welcome him. Alright, go find a seat, Arisato."

Scanning the room for an open chair, Minato was pleasantly surprised to find a seat that was at the very back of the room, hidden from the teacher's view by a particularly large student. Even better, it was sandwiched between a black-haired girl in a cream-colored vest (vaguely familiar) and a teal-haired girl in the normal school uniform (_very _familiar). As he made his way to the back and sat down, the teal-haired girl's head, previously bent down, popped up in surprise, apparently at the fact that anyone would decide to sit next to her.

What that little action implied about the girl's private life pissed the _hell_ out of the transfer student.

He looked over at her to nod a greeting, but before he could, she flushed and stared directly down at her desk. As the girl collapsed in on herself, Minato sighed silently, still fuming about her surprise at someone just _sitting near her_.

Meanwhile, Ekoda started his lecture, predictably about the Japanese imperial court, the Fujiwara family, and Heian-era poetry and literature. And just like in the auditorium, Minato tuned the lecture out as his thoughts focused on more otherworldly matters.

He couldn't fight the shadow, and he sure couldn't just cross his fingers and hope his teammates would have better luck fighting the monster. So, that left him with… what, exactly?

He imperceptibly clenched his jaw. There _was _one option available, but that was… not optimal. There had to be a better solution then that… right?

Unfortunately, even after thinking about it for the rest of class, he couldn't come up with a better solution. The bell suddenly rang, startling him as students all around got up for lunch. He followed suit, but immediately after leaving the classroom was intercepted by his grinning sister, mischief clearly written in her expression in capital letters. She latched onto his arm, leaving no room for argument, and guided him over to a spot where Yukari and a smiling male with a recognizable baseball hat were sitting against a wall. As his sister rapidly dealt with introductions, Minato let out another quiet, long-suffering sigh.

_This was going to be a long day_.

* * *

**AN: Hey again everyone, thanks for reading!**

**First off, I want to say that I'm sorry about Minato's monologuing. There's probably a better way to get some of the story content across, but I was too lazy to figure it out. But this should (hopefully) be the last chapter with any of it for a while!**

**Also, I want to thank **_**Bladestar123**_**, **_**PlutoAn**_**, **_**de Razz**_**, **_**njhnaruto**_**, and **_**seekerskull8692**_** for following this story; **_**Bladestar123**_** and **_**Sain713**_** for fav'ing it; and especially **_**de Razz**_** for leaving me a review (And in response to de Razz: Yeah, I dunno what was going on with chapter 1 when I first uploaded it, but I think that's the last time I'm going to upload stories using cut and paste). It really means a lot to me that you all liked it enough to follow/fav/review!**

**As always, please drop a review or send me a PM if you have the time to give me any suggestions, criticisms, or etc. I'll see you all next week!**


	4. Chapter 4

_Chapter 4_

Yukari wasn't the type to get jealous.

Sure, she'd had those kinds of thoughts before. Words couldn't even describeher feelings after seeing this one girl fit into her (at that time) favorite pink dress _so much_ better than she could. She'd also stared longingly at a nice pair of red pumps, soon bought by a well-to-do family, that were just a _little bit_ too expensive for her (_at least according to her "Mom," _she thought with no little spite, _who probably spent the cash with another "certain someone"_). Hell, she'd even considered bumping a highly skilled member of the archery club to a lesser division, just to preserve her own position.

Fortunately for her morals, she'd never acted on those feelings. And since she was considered one of the most popular and attractive girls in school, she was usually the one people were jealous _of_,not the other way around (although, secretly, Yukari didn't understand why on earth _she_ got all the attention. Gekkokaun was fit to _burst_ with seriously attractive people).

So yeah, Yukari wasn't usually the type to get jealous.

But _holy hell_, did she want a sister like Hamuko.

She didn't consider herself poetic at all, but even Yukari had to admit that Hamuko really did light up the room when she stepped in. And it wasn't just her huge smile: practically everything she did was perky in its own way. On anyoneelse it would've just been annoying, but for Hamuko it was simply charming.

In fact, Yukari would've been _seriously pissed _at Minato for neglecting such an amazing sister if she hadn't seen the small, contented (and, if she was being completely honest with herself, _totally adorable_) smiles on his face when he thought no one was watching him look at his sister. Given his personality and how he carried himself, she was pretty sure even _he_ didn't know he was doing it most of the time. She was glad he did, though. It reminded her that he was… well, a human with emotions.

_Of course_, she mused as Hamuko dragged her brother over to where she and Junpei were sitting, _that doesn't change the fact that he's absolutely frigid to everyone else_. Honestly, how could two people who grew up together and looked almost identical develop two _entirely different _personalities? It really boggled her mind.

She was abruptly cut off from her thoughts when Hamuko plopped down next to her with a friendly grin, which the girl in pink promptly returned. "What'd you think of the lectures?" The new girl asked while pulling out a lunch box.

"Both were boring and pointless," Yukari replied dryly. "Although I'm pretty sure that even learning about Utsubo Kubota will be more helpful to us than whatever the principal talked about."

Hamuko gasped in faux shock. "'Whatever he talked about?' You mean you _weren't_ paying attention to the principal's speech?! Yukari, I expected better out of you!" Wagging a finger in a scolding manner, Hamuko adopted a superior look by raising her chin while staring down her nose at her peer. "What if we ever need to know about… _jobs worth doing well?_"

The last phrase was uttered in perfect monotone, and Yukari giggled at the other girl's antics. "I guess I'll just have to survive without his help."

"Without the help of _Principal-sama_? (Snrk) Good luck with _that_."

Even Hamuko herself couldn't say that without a snort, and Yukari couldn't help but laugh at the new title for their bulky Principal.

As their laughter subsided, Hamuko offered her companion half of the sandwich she'd prepared early that morning. Yukari shook her head at the suggestion, but that wasn't going to deter the auburn haired-girl.

"Nuh-uh, Yukari-chan, you didn't pack a lunch, and you've gotta eat _something_. Don't tell me you're on a diet… Are you?"

Hesitating for a moment, Yukari responded, "…Well, it's not _really_ a diet, more like a…"

Glancing back over at Hamuko, who had adopted an '_Oh, really?'_ expression, Yukari faltered. This prompted the other girl to move the sandwich-half closer to the dieter's mouth. "Come oooon, diets are actually so bad for you. You'll be just as beautiful after eating as before! …At least, that's what I tell Mina when he doesn't eat."

Slightly blushing at one implication of Hamuko's advice, Yukari didn't miss the other and chuckled. "You tell _Minato-kun_ to eat by saying he'll be just as beautiful afterwards? And that _works?_ He must listen to everything you say."

Sighing and smiling in a somewhat resigned manner, Hamuko slightly dropped her sandwich-holding hand and looked over Yukari's shoulder at something. Yukari herself turned around and followed Hamuko's gaze to find Minato, being interrogated (unsuccessfully) by Junpei about what had happened _last night_. "Well, sort of. He usually listens to my advice about what _he_ should do, but he can never really leave _me_ alone when I ask. He's got a Superman complex unlike any other, I _swear_."

Disbelieving, Yukari raised an eyebrow and leaned forward, still avoiding the sandwich. "Seriously? _ Minato-kun?"_

Hamuko chuckled at the skeptical look on her friend's face. "I don't _actually _think he has a complex, y' know."

"Well, duh. But he still seems like the type of guy who'd be more likely to watch something bad happen than actually get involved to stop it."

Yukari's new classmate laughed again. "Yeah, most people think that. I mean, he's not a knight in shining armor or anything, he's more like a _wall_, but either way he refuses to stop looking out for me. Think about last night (Junpei immediately perked up here, prompting the girls to quickly scoot away and speak in hushed voices): Mina didn't even _hesitate_ to barge in through the door when he heard your yell. And who knows what he was planning to do when he saw your… Er, y' know."

Ignoring Junpei's strangled "What?!" from behind them, Yukari shied away from the other girl's look and rubbed the back of her head. "Uh, yeah… Sorry about that whole thing, it's… kinda complicated…"

In typical Hamuko fashion, she waved off her friend's apology. "I figured, and it's totally fine. Mina and I have actually been in more dangerous situations than that anyways, so no worries!"

"Wait, really?!" Yukari didn't need to feign surprise there. Even though she'd felt guilty about skimming the twins' files the previous night, she had no idea about the events of their lives besides their parents' tragic deaths. Sadly, before she could enquire further, the bell signaling the end of lunch rang. Yukari jumped in surprise and looked away from her friend at the clock, but something suddenly fell into her lap while she was preoccupied. Unsurprisingly, it was the sandwich.

Yukari glared at the out of place food item, and then at her new friend who was getting up with a huge smirk. The girl in pink tried to say something like "Not eating this," but Hamuko beat her to the punch.

"You've gotta eat it! Trust me, I know _every_ trick in the book when it comes to avoid eating your food. And since we're living together… You should probably get used to eating your meals anyways!" Hamuko then danced off to class, but stopped about halfway and called out to Yukari, "And don't just stare at me, get eating or you'll be late for class! _Bon appétit!_"

Yukari watched Hamuko go, before an all-too-familiar chuckle from behind made her turn around. Junpei and Minato were watching the scene, both smiling to various degrees. The baseball enthusiast stood slightly ahead of his new acquaintance, adjusting his baseball cap as he grinned down at his childhood friend. "Well, Yuka-tan, I think you'd better listen t' your Mother… It didn't seem like she was bluffin' to me!"

Huffing as she prepared to throw the sandwich at Junpei, both for telling her to eat _and_ associating Hamuko with her "mother," she froze when she heard "**NUH-UH**!" come from the doorway to their classroom. Looking over, she saw (somewhat incredulously) her new friend, once again wagging her finger admonishingly at Yukari.

"I _told _you I knew all the tricks! Eat it, Yukari-chan!"

Yukari looked begrudgingly down at her new whole-wheat arch-nemesis, while Junpei just laughed and followed Hamuko into room 2-F. The brunette was about to give up, throwing the sandwich away and facing Hamuko's wrath later, when a quiet baritone sounded from behind her. "I'd just eat it now."

Turning with a slight start, she found the slightly taller Arisato twin looking at her. "Trust me, it's much easier if you just let her have her way."

Yukari blinked, then sighed. "I suppose you'd know…" She hesitantly raised the sandwich to her face, but lowered it again with a questioning look at the boy. "Wait, does Hamuko-chan _really_ get you to eat by telling you you'll be 'just as beautiful afterwards?'"

Minato looked at her with the faintest traces of amusement and replied, "Actually, I've never had trouble eating."

Yukari froze for a moment, and then looked up sharply at the grey-eyed boy. "You don't? So… she _lied to me_? But… wait, you said that…" She was legitimately stunned at her new classmates' blatant disregard for honesty, and was about to reevaluate her opinion of the Arisatos before the taller one interrupted her thoughts.

"I just said that it's easier if you let her have her way," Minato reminded her. "And I'd guess she lied to you to make you feel less uncomfortable about her 'beautiful' comment. She often speaks without thinking." He briefly closed his eyes here, before looking down at her seriously. "We're both quite stubborn about our beliefs. One of them is that starving yourself, for any reason, is wrong. We're not above a white lie to get someone to eat."

Pausing at the seriousness of his tone (and at the fact she'd suddenly heard him speak more than one sentence at a time), Yukari glanced up at the boy. "You're not above lying to get people to _eat _something? Isn't that a little… extreme?"

Minato closed his eyes again and exhaled through his nose. "It depends on who you ask. Where Hamu and I grew up, finding food was a bigger problem than lying."

Yukari's eyes widened and she sharply inhaled at the implications of Minato's words. "I… I'm sorry, I didn't mean…"

As seemed to be an Arisato tradition, Minato waved off Yukari's stammered apology. "It's fine. Just don't think any less of Hamu because she's trying to feed you."

Without another word, the navy-haired boy walked off. In the same moment, Yukari finally understood what Hamuko had meant about Minato's over-protectiveness. Had he really just waited around to clear up any confusion Yukari might've had about Hamuko's intentions? And, for that matter, was he really trying to help out with _Hamuko's _friendships? (Because he should really be worrying more about _his_ friendships rather than his sister's…)

Shaking her head and deciding to indulge her energetic friend, she took a hesitant bite out of the sandwich while standing up, only to freeze (again) as she registered the taste.

"This sandwich is _incredible_!" she muttered to herself, staring down at the deceptively delicious artifact in her hand. Honestly, it wasn't surprising that Minato had no trouble eating if _this_ was the type of food the Arisatos were used to.

Finishing off Hamuko's masterpiece just as the late bell rang, Yukari scurried into class to avoid Ms. Toriumi's wrath. Sitting down next to Hamuko, who looked at her smugly after noting her lack of sandwich (and the crumbs on her face, although Hamuko neglected to mention this), Yukari thought about what Minato had implied about their childhood, and what Hamuko had implied about Minato's complex. Despite all she knew about the Arisatos after reading their files, she realized that she still had _no idea _what to expect from them. They truly were something of an enigma.

Although, after all these new revelations, Yukari guessed that even _they_ had to be running out of surprises. The keyword being, as she would later find out, _guessed_.

* * *

Hamuko stumbled into the lounge with a loud groan, followed by a half-amused, half-exasperated Yukari. Totally oblivious to the world around her, she clutched her stomach in _mortal pain_, slowly zigzagging her way to the stairs. It had seemed like _such_ a good idea to force Yukari to eat at the ramen joint she had seen earlier, but she hadn't taken into account Yukari's stomach. Which was, approximately, the size of a marble. Or maybe _smaller_. So, faced with wasting food, how could Hamuko say no to finishing Yukari's partially eaten serving?

Ugh. (_Urp_.) Now she knew better. Three-quarters of an extra bowl too late.

Caught up in melodrama, she didn't notice the intelligent-looking blond man with a cream-colored overcoat sitting on the lounge's couch, looking up from his book on utilitarian philosophy with an amused smile. "A little too much to eat?"

"Yeah," came the girl's immediate response. "I swear, Yukari-chan couldn't eat one serving to save her life! And she's so _skinny_, it's actually getting to that point."

Then she blinked, momentarily forgetting about her aching stomach, while Yukari glanced self-consciously at her belly. "Er… Wait, have we met?"

The man chuckled, adjusting his coat as he sat up. "No, not yet. My name is Ikutsuki Shuji, I'm the Board Chairman for Gekkoukan. I wanted to make sure you and your brother didn't have any questions regarding your living accommodations. Ah, speaking of which, do you know where he is?"

"Oh, he's not back yet? Nah, I dunno where he is, he does what he wants," Hamuko replied as she plopped down on the couch next to Ikutsuki. "But! I _do _know that he'd have no questions!"

A chuckle. "Alright then, what about you?"

_Oh, I dunno, maybe… what's up with those __**guns**__?_

Contrary to popular belief, Hamuko wasn't totally ditsy. Sure, she _was _naturally bright and cheery, but enough time in the orphanage with her brother had made her _very_ suspicious of potential threats. Girls with guns classified as threats in her book, and even though Yukari seemed relatively harmless, she doubted her friend would appreciate any mention of the guns now.

(And yeah, despite her suspicions, she _did _consider Yukari a friend. Unlike her brother, she'd never stopped her suspicious nature from interfering too much with her relationships. That was silly.)

She didn't voice those thoughts. Instead, she paused, tilting her head and placing a thoughtful finger on her chin. "Hmm… Well, I dunno if I have any either. Although," she said as she glanced at the Chairman, "Why are you here? Er, if you don't mind me asking. I dunno if you do rounds of all the dorms or something…"

Ikutsuki smiled and shook his head. "No, no, I don't mind at all! Mitsuru's father asks me to help her run the dorm, since she has schoolwork to attend to as well as her responsibilities here. So, I come by here every so often just to check up on things."

"Wow, that's really sweet of you!" Hamuko beamed at him. "But how do you know Mitsuru's father?"

"Ah, I've known him for a long time. At my real job, I'm a research scientist for the Kirijo group, so he's been my boss for years. And even before that, I worked for _his_ father. I actually moved here to work for the Kirijo group, and my typical workplace is actually at the hospital a few blocks away." He paused, and then smiled. "I suppose you could say I'm _partial _to this partof town!"

Hamuko grinned. "Or, that you a-_dore _this dorm!"

There was a brief silence, broken by a light _slap _when Yukari face-palmed behind them, before the two punners started giggling hysterically.

Hamuko managed to collect herself first. "That was (heh!) a good one, Ikutsuki-san!"

"I should say the same to you! Most people don't understand my jokes, I'm glad to have found a kindred spirit!"

Hamuko's grin grew wider. "I know, me too! Together, we'll be… un-pun-trollable!"

Yukari groaned behind them as they broke into hysterics again.

When their laughter subsided, Hamuko stood up. "Well, I don't wanna hold you up any longer, Ikutsuki-san, but it's been great meeting you!"

"Likewise," the man said with a genuine smile. "I do hope that we'll be able to talk again soon!"

"Definitely!" Hamuko chirped back with a grin. "I'll come up with the best puns you've ever heard!"

"I'm looking forward to it. Have a nice evening!"

Waving goodbye to her new (Partner in Puns? Pun-ccomplice?) friend, she and Yukari headed up the stairs. After they reached the first floor, Yukari remarked dryly, "You and the Chairman sure get along well."

Hamuko stuck her tongue out. "Jealous?"

Yukari snorted. "As if! Just remind me to be out of earshot next time you guys talk."

"Oh, please, you _love _our puns, you just don't want to show it!"

"Whatever helps you sleep at night…"

Hamuko pouted, and Yukari laughed at her expression as they reached the girls' floor. After saying goodbye, the two girls went to their respective rooms.

The auburn-haired girl immediately flopped down on her mattress and tugged her bow loose. It had been a _great _day... but also a totally exhausting one. Who knew how many new people she'd met? And she even got Mina to meet people. _Mina_, meeting people! Hopefully she'd get him to take the next _big step _tomorrow and start talking to them.

She frowned. Where was he, anyways? She hadn't been lying when she said he liked to do his own thing, but that usually meant listening to music in his room. Walking around the city by himself was unusual, especially for Minato. Maybe he was buying new music? Or… did he… make a friend?!

That last thought brought an amused smile to the girl's face. Nah, that was highly unlikely. This _was _Mina. But, then again, she'd always believed in miracles.

Sighing and rubbing her eyes, she glanced at her backpack before looking at the clock (11:00 pm) and deciding to go to bed. Studying could wait; it was late, and she could feel that tomorrow was going to be a big day!

* * *

**AN: …So, how about that 2nd paragraph? I think it's abundantly clear that I'm not exactly into the fashion scene.**

**Also, for those wondering: A Superman complex (according to Wikipedia) is "an unhealthy sense of responsibility, or the belief that everyone else lacks the capacity to successfully perform one or more tasks."**

**Shoutouts to: **_**Wellhaithar**_**, **_**7shi**_**, **_**Wolfbite Raider**_**, **_**KafeiDetour**_**, and **_**gerson **_**for following; **_**Wolfbite Raider**_**, **_**KafeiDetour**_**, and **_**gerson**_** for faving; and of course **_**Wolfbite Raider**_** and **_**gerson**_** for reviewing.**

_**gerson **_**reminded me of something important to tell you all. I tried to make it clear in the synopsis, but if you didn't know: this is NOT a fic with a powerful Minato. If anything, it's the total opposite: it's about him struggling to cope with the fact that he **_**doesn't **_**have much power now, especially since he's used to being the leader of S.E.E.S., and since he's experienced the universe arcana.**

**Anyways, thanks for reading! I apologize if something doesn't make too much sense here or if there are more mistakes than normal; it's finals week, so I didn't have much time to proofread this chapter. But as always, please drop a review or send a PM if you see anything to correct.**

**Next week… the first action sequence! And good luck to anyone taking finals!**


	5. Chapter 5

_Chapter 5_

Iwatodai and Port Island were generally regarded as one of the safest areas in Japan. Having been built from the ground up by the Kirijo Group, there were almost no places in town that existed without some sort of protection. Thanks to continuously updated security systems, the city's crime rate was ridiculously low, and the few areas that weren't part of the main grid, those frequented by the few thugs and gangs that existed, were kept strictly in control by the powerfully funded Police Department. While the Kirijo Group usually attracted bad press due to its size and secretive nature, even its worst critics had to grudgingly agree that the group had done a stellar job with safety in Port Island.

_Of course_, a small part of Akihiko's brain mused, "_safe" is relative_.

Sprinting through the streets like a bat out of hell, the boxer glanced up at the rooftops for a sign of the monstrous shadow tailing him. At least, he _assumed_ it was a shadow, and while it couldn't be anything else, who knew they could grow to be that huge?

A familiar, bellowing growl snapped him back to attention, and he tore around a corner, grabbing a streetlamp to help himself pivot, just as he caught a glimpse of the monster leap from one roof to another. The grey-haired boy shook the sweat from his brow and cracked his knuckles, forcing his legs to move faster as he splashed through a bloody puddle with a wet noise.

Then, he grinned a little, because _damn, _this was the most intense experience he'd had in ages.

Suddenly, the boxer heard a whistling noise above and in front of him. His instincts took over, and he immediately grabbed the corner of a building to stop, feeling like he nearly yanked his arm out in the process. He winced, but had no time to contemplate when a huge impact from ahead of him sent asphalt flying, forcing him to involuntarily cover his face.

Akihiko lowered his arms at the sound of a low growl, and he found himself face to face with the bastard.

Face to _mask_ being the more accurate description. The shadow was a tangled mass of arms, all colored a shadowy black, but with varying lengths and muscle masses. One arm, grotesquely narrow and tall with a length of nearly two meters, held a lightly glowing blue mask, clearly stained with blood, which leered down at the slight human below it. Twitching erratically, it stalked forward, reaching out dozens of arms towards the boxer as it grew closer.

Like _hell_ was he going to let that thing grab him.

Taking a step back, Akihiko tore a silver handgun out of its holster. Ignoring its intricate design and the abbreviation _S.E.E.S. _engraved onto its side, he jammed the weapon against his forehead with a smirk and pulled the trigger.

"Come on, then! _Polydeuces!_"

Blue-tinted glass burst out of the back of his head, and a loud shattering echoed around the street. Above the grey-haired boy, blue shards swirled and crashed together, materializing into a blond humanoid with a blue body and a tiny red left hand and feet. Its right arm formed a huge drill, whirling as it stared down the demon in front of it.

"_Sonic punch!_"

At Akihiko's command, Polydeuces charged forward, spinning its drill even faster, before slamming it into the shadow at the last possible moment. The shadow's longest arm jerked backwards, taking its mask out of the persona's range, while several other limbs, now severed, went flying. The other arms shot forward, and several latched onto the bulky persona while more materialized knives with a sickening sound of too many blades being drawn at once. The monster sliced down at its opponent, but most blades bounced off of the persona's metal flak vest, and the shadow growled in frustration.

Akihiko didn't wait to see the rest. As his persona grappled with the monster, he took off down the street, wincing at the bruise he had gotten when he ordered his persona to attack. Mitsuru would probably give him a lecture for that later. She hated him taking risks, and, well… moves that drained health were pretty risky.

But in his defense, this was a terrible match-up for him. In boxing, one of the most important lessons is that if someone has greater range than you, you need to let them make the first move, and look for an opening. Otherwise, you'll get the crap beaten out of you since they can both stay out of your range while whaling away on your shorter frame. This shadow, however, had extended range and _zero _openings, since it had so many arms. And all of those arms looked like they could do some damage. Hell, he wasn't afraid to say that some part of him was legitimately jealous of some of those arm muscles.

He felt the familiar settling within him that told him Polydeuces had returned to him. The shadow had obviously noticed too, and he heard it roar from several blocks away. Spitting out phlegm, he sped up again, breath heavy and ragged as his exhausted body objected to his pace.

_Only a few more blocks…!_

And speaking of which, he'd better let them know. He whipped out his flip phone (a Razr) and hit speed dial 2. After one ring, someone picked up.

"_Akihiko, is that you? What's going on?_"

"Sorry, Mitsuru, I don't have time to talk-" A much closer roar him made him cringe, cutting himself off.

"_What was that?!_"

He chuckled, almost without meaning to. "You're not gonna believe this, but there's a _huge _shadow right here. It's chasing me, but I'm almost back. Thought you guys should know."

Mitsuru was about to reply, but he never heard it, instead flipping his phone shut and shoving it back into his pocket. Just then, he heard a crunching noise come from the buildings to his left, and he looked up to see-

He nearly stumbled. The shadow was running after him, not on top of the buildings or on the ground, but on the _sides_ of the buildings. _What?!_ That wasn't even logical, it wouldn't make chasing him any easier!

With a throaty bellow, it tensed to leap towards him. Jerking his head back down, Akihiko quickly noticed a tiny alley between the buildings, just wide enough for him to fit. Without further thought, he changed his tack and squeezed into the space, just as the earth-shattering impact of the monster landing caused the buildings to shake.

He then realized what a stupid mistake he'd made.

The wall covered most of his body, but the space was too small for Polydeuces to be summoned without seriously damaging the structural integrity of the two buildings surrouning him. The shadow, on the other hand... its arms were long enough that it didn't need to worry about that.

Through the gap, the boy saw the shadow's mask turn towards him slowly, before the rest of its "body" prowled forward menacingly. While it deliberately took each step, casually summoning a knife with one of its longer arms, Akihiko scrambled backwards until he hit an poorly placed wall, preventing further movement.

_Shit!_

He swallowed as the monster's arm grew closer. At this point, the only thing he could do was charge and get the hell out of there, since he'd get hurt doing _anything _now. He tensed his body, preparing for a sprint and a stab of pain...

But before he could do anything, the shadow stopped.

Shoulders relaxing in surprise, Akihiko peered around the hand extended towards him, and saw the mask was now turned away from him. The monster made a low noise (and, come to think of it, how _did _it do that?), retracted its hand, and sprinted down the street away from the dorm.

Akihiko stood there for a moment, completely dumbfounded. What just happened?

Quickly shaking his head, he made his way out of the alley before running back to the dorm, admittedly at a much slower pace than before. He burst through the door, immediately shutting it again behind him and sliding down to the floor with an exhausted sigh.

"Akihiko!"

Even after so many years of working with Mitsuru, hearing her voice still made him snap to attention. He immediately sat upright, still gasping.

"What happened? Are you alright?" Mitsuru questioned as she, the Chairman, and Yukari rushed into the room.

"I'm fine," Akihiko assured her, not telling her that he almost wasn't. "There was a huge shadow, but I got away from it. I'm pretty sure that it'll be here soon anyways."

"How big, Akihiko?"

He opened his mouth to reply, but the building suddenly shook, swinging the chandelier and knocking cups and a few plates off of the lounge's coffee table and shelves.

The Chairman gripped the wall and widened his eyes in fear, and Yukari squeaked. "You've gotta be _kidding _me!"

Mitsuru narrowed her eyes and drew her evoker. "Mr. Chairman, please get to the command room. Takeba, go wake Arisato up, and get her down here; you two will be our backup if something goes wrong. You have your headpiece?"

"Y-Yeah," Yukari replied and raised a hand to her ear to make sure her communications device was working.

Mitsuru nodded. "Good. Please go quickly!"

Yukari nodded and dashed off, followed by Ikutsuki. Akihiko then turned to Mitsuru, one eyebrow raised. "Only one Arisato? What about the boy?"

"He never came back to the dorm tonight."

"What?! Mitsuru, where is he?"

"I don't _know_, Akihiko," Mitsuru replied tightly, "I would've dragged him back here by his ears if I did!"

Some part of Akihiko was pleased to see his old friend's real, slightly sarcastic personality seep through (Slightly, because Akihiko wasn't totally sure she _wouldn't _have dragged the taller Arisato back by his ears). Most of him, however, was more worried about the boy.

"Something else got the shadow's attention when it was chasing me," Akihiko reported quietly. "You don't think-"

"We're wasting time," Mitsuru cut him off. "We need to go out there and destroy that monster before it can cause any more damage to the city."

Mitsuru put up a good show. But Akihiko had known her too long to miss the worry and minute despair that flickered on her face when he mentioned the missing Arisato. He shared her sentiments.

Another tremor shook through the building, and the two veterans glanced at each other before running outside. A quick movement on one side of the dorm caught their attention. Akihiko jabbed his finger in its direction. "There!"

Sprinting after it, they rounded the corner to find the shadow pounding on the wall. Noticing their presence, it turned its mask towards them, while its other arms flailed around as the monster began to stalk towards the duo. Mitsuru glared at it, clenching her silver evoker tightly, but Akihiko just stared at it suspiciously, because…

"It should be bigger…"

Mitsuru turned her glare on him in all its terror. "Akihiko! _This is no time-_"

"No, Mitsuru!" Akihiko interrupted, in a rare showing of boldness against the Kirijo heir. "I mean it was bigger earlier, _much_ bigger! Nearly twice the size of this one! I don't think this is the one that was chasing me!"

Eyes widening, Mitsuru pressed a finger to her ear. "Takeba! Do you read me? There might be more than one shadow! I need you to-"

Akihiko didn't hear what she said next, as she was drowned out by the mini-shadow's high-pitched squeal. He almost laughed. Seriously? This was his opponent now that he had reinforcements?

It charged forward regardless, much more clumsily than its larger brethren, and summoned knives in its hands as it leapt into the air. Akihiko sidestepped neatly, and it crashed into the spot where the boxer had been standing moments ago before turning to face him. Unfortunately for the monster, Akihiko already had his evoker out and fired, Polydeuces exploding into existence above him.

"_Zio!_"

The blond persona raised its drill, the air charged with energy, and the shadow was hit with a small bolt of electricity accompanied by a sharp crackle. Crying out in pain, the shadow took a step backwards before shaking itself and once again charging forward, this time with more purpose. The grey-haired boy tensed, ready to dodge…

Until the shadow tripped over one of its hands with a squeak, dropping its knives and mask, and landed in a tumble at the boxer's feet.

Akihiko just stared at the shadow, which was now making distressed noises and fumbling around desperately for its mask. He was seriously considering giving it back to the shadow, too. Sure, it had been trying to kill them a second ago, but now it just looked like it needed a hug.

Mitsuru, however, had no qualms. Striding forward, she immediately brought a heeled boot down on the mask with a _crack._ Akihiko winced, and the shadow screamed in its death throes, arms falling one by one to the ground before they dissolved into black sludge and soon evaporated.

As the shadow fell apart and its groans died with it, Mitsuru let out a deep breath. Having visibly collected herself, she turned on a heel and faced her compatriot. "Well, Akihiko? Where do you think the other one is?"

He hummed. "We need to check the rooftops. That thing can climb faster than a damn monkey."

Mitsuru blanched. "It can _what?!_"

"Climb faster… Mitsuru, you didn't tell them to go to the _roof_, did you?!"

"We need to go, _now!_" the Kirijo heir ordered. "Talk later, Akihiko!"

The boxer nodded, and the pair went sprinting for the entrance. Mitsuru tore the door open, almost ripping it off its hinges, and they scrambled through the lounge and up the stairs. As they arrived at the first floor, Akihiko tried to speak. "Mitsuru-"

"Akihiko, sending them to the Control Room would draw the shadow there, where they would have to defend the chairman _as well _as themselves! And I wasn't going to keep them on the first floor when the other shadow could ambush them through the back door! Did you want me to send them out with us?!"

"Uh, actually," the grey-haired boy panted out, "I was going to say to not blame yourself, I should've told you about its abilities earlier."

Mitsuru stayed silent while her face heated up slightly. They continued bolting up the steps, taking two at a time, before finally arriving at the roof's entrance and slamming into it, only to realize that it wasn't budging.

"_Dammit!"_ the redhead hissed, nearly losing her composure entirely. "_Why the hell would they lock the damn door?!_" She jammed her hand into her pocket, fumbling with her keys, before they heard a cry come from the other side of the door.

_Yukari!_

Akihiko clenched his fists in frustration as Mitsuru's actions became more frantic. After a few more moments, she finally found the right key and rammed it into the keyhole. She twisted the doorknob and kicked the door open in one movement, leaping out and drawing her evoker-

Before stopping in surprise, looking at something to the left of the door, and ignoring the injured Yukari lying down to her right.

Akihiko jumped out beside Mitsuru, to see what _exactly_ was more important than their fallen comrade and the enormous shadow right in front of them, before a shattering noise wiped everything else from his mind.

A girl with reddish-brown hair (_probably that Hamuko_) had summoned a persona and was smirking widely, eyes glazed over, with glowing blue shards flowing from her temple. Meanwhile, her persona, a brunette with a gold, metal-plated body, mechanical joints, and a heart-shaped lyre on its back, swirled into existence above her.

"It seems we were correct about her potential," Mitsuru muttered, dazed from the spectacle. Akihiko nodded slowly, and was about to speak until the sound of breaking flesh made him freeze in shock.

A white-gloved hand had burst out of the persona's chest, causing it to clutch itself near the opening while Hamuko gasped in pain and grabbed her head. The persona's midsection convulsed and wriggled, until a gleaming blade slid out of the stomach and next to the hand.

Akihiko's eyes widened.

In one fluid movement, the sword swiped sideways, almost bisecting the gold-plated persona, while the hand viciously tore the rest of the upper half away. The remains of the split persona dissolved, melting into dark ectoplasm that hit the roof with a sickening _squelch_, and something else slowly rose out of it, momentarily hidden from view by the gore.

As the persona's remains settled, the figure was revealed, and the veterans and Yukari gasped.

Almost more gruesome than the shadow itself, the hand was part of something straight out of nightmares. White gloves were attached to an abnormally tall and thin body, dressed in a black overcoat that reached its ankles, while its face was covered by a bone-white mask, split in two like sharp jaws. Most disconcerting were its long, slim sword, now stained in dark matter from the previous persona, and the string of coffins chained to its neck that hovered ominously as the new persona rasped for breath in short gasps.

Suddenly rearing back, it deeply inhaled before bellowing out an animalistic war cry. The resulting shockwave (_Seriously?_ Akihiko thought. _A shockwave?!_) made the veterans and Yukari wince and cover their faces as their hair blew back. Hamuko, directly below the monster, fell to her knees and dropped the evoker, clenching the ground with one hand while still holding her head with the other.

The noise stilled as the persona stared at the shadow. In the resulting silence, one of the shadow's hands, now trembling, dropped its knife with a _clang_, strangely loud in the deathly quiet of the night.

Then, the persona pounced.

_Merciless_ could be used to describe the new persona. So could _terrifying_, _monster_, and _things to never see again_. But for some reason, Akihiko's mind kept thinking _death_.

The black persona flew forward while the shadow desperately backpedalled, feebly swiping to keep the monstrosity at bay. Completely disregarding its attempts, the persona swung its sword, cutting knives and a good deal of arms into pieces, before reaching out with its other hand and crushing the arm holding the mask. As the shadow screeched in pain, the persona neatly caught the mask, white-gloved fingers through both eyeholes and the thumb through the mouth hole. With a bellow, it clenched its fist, crushing the glowing mask through its center. The shadow screamed in terror, just like its counterpart, and its arms fell one by one while the mask fell apart in the persona's hands.

The persona surveyed its work for a moment, breathing heavily as it watched the shadow's remains dissolve, before letting out another nightmare-inducing roar. Everyone present winced, but when they looked again, the persona had reverted to its older, golden form, before soon fading away with the sound of static.

Nobody moved, stunned and in shock at what had just happened, until a faintly cheery voice shook Akihiko from his stupor.

"Hey-a… Senpais… glad you could make it…" Hamuko said with a faint smile. "I'd hate to have you miss the… party…"

She began tumbling over from her kneeled state, but Mitsuru and Akihiko caught her before she could hit the ground. Laying the girl on her back, Mitsuru quickly checked for a pulse, holding her hand to the girl's wrist for a moment before sighing in relief. "She's alive, just unconscious. It could just be dark hour exhaustion, but we should still take her to the hospital right away."

Akihiko nodded. But life was never that simple.

Somewhere from their right, Yukari squeaked out, "S-senpais!" They both whirled around to find two small shadows, merely blobs on the floor with arms and blue masks, inching their way towards them.

Akihiko could have snorted. _Cowardly Mayas._ He didn't even need to summon Polydeuces for them.

He cracked his neck and took a step forward, but an arm moved in front of him to block his path. "These ones are mine, Akihiko," Mitsuru stated in a dangerously quiet voice. "Stand back."

The boxer gulped and obeyed.

His old friend strode forward, lightly placing her evoker against her temple, before firing with a glare at the shadows. "_Penthesilea!_"

Mitsuru's persona rose from behind her, its female face hidden behind a slit knight's helmet while a corset-shaped breastplate covered its body. Swinging its rapier and dirk experimentally, it looked down at its redheaded summoner, who pointed her smoking evoker at the shadows.

"Attack."

Mitsuru turned away and began walking back to Yukari, not even watching as her persona threw its blades with deadly accuracy, impaling and killing the shadows instantly. While her persona retrieved its blades and dissipated, Mitsuru knelt by Yukari and helped her up, gesturing at Akihiko. "Come on, we must take Arisato to the hospital. The dark hour should be ending soon anyways."

As she spoke, the world turned from a faded green to its normal hue. Akihiko picked up the girl's limp body (_surprisingly light_), and he and the two other girls exited the roof, closing the door behind them with a click.

* * *

Yukari closed the bathroom door and turned on the faucet, sliding down the wall as the water fell with a relaxing gurgle. The girl heaved a frustrated sigh, wincing in pain as her deep breath aggravated a bruise on her side. What the _hell _was wrong with her? The shadow was terrifying, of course, but she should have done _something!_ All she had to do was _pull the damn trigger!_ But no. No, she _couldn't._ Instead, she had just stood there like a moron! Like an idiot! Like a novice! Like…

Like a _damn weakling_.

She knew that's what she was, of course. But to hear it from herself… it hurt. It cut deep.

The brunette shut her eyes and slowly drew out her evoker, unbuckling the weapon's holster with a _click _as the button released, and placed it almost gently on her forehead. Furrowing her brows, she took another deep breath, and tightened her grip on the trigger. Yukari exhaled explosively, opening her eyes with a frighteningly intense glare as she began to pull the-

All she found was several inches of cold silver steel staring back at her emotionlessly. Her glare faltered, and as her hands suddenly went numb, she lowered the quivering gun down to her lap and bent her head low, brown bangs covering her eyes.

No, she really couldn't do it. Not now, not the last time, and not even when someone depended on it.

God _dammit_. God damn _her_. And her _fucking _weakness too.

She glared at the object in her hands, eyes wet with frustration. She wouldn't give up now. She'd _never_ give up until she found out what really happened that day. But at the same time… God, it was hard. Who knew that such a small piece of steel could so thoroughly run and ruin her life?

Yukari shook her head. It didn't matter now. Now, she needed to wait for her Senpais to get back from the hospital so they could all debrief, and the bathroom wasn't the most… comfortable place to wait. Yukari got up with a sigh. After turning off the water with a _squeak, _she opened the door, although not before noting that her cardigan was a _complete _mess (Great, that was _just_ what she needed). She stepped into the lounge slowly, taking off her torn pink outer layer and tossing it onto the armchair before plopping down on it herself. After absently unbuttoning the top button of her white dress shirt, she flopped a bruised arm across her eyes as she waited for the leaders to return.

It seemed like only a few moments later when the door opened with a sharp _crack_, and Yukari started from her half-asleep state. "O-Oh, Senpais! I didn't know you'd be back so soon, how's she-"

She froze and immediately cut herself off in shock as she focused on the figure in the doorway. That was _not _one of her Senpais.

The person, a male, was breathing heavily, one hand gripping the doorframe while the other was clutched against his chest, trying (and failing) to stop the massive bleeding coming from his shredded shirt. Blood had seeped through nearly all of his clothes, staining his torso a dark red and seeping down to his legs, where Yukari noticed that he was leaning entirely on his right leg. The boy's left leg was bent at an impossible angle, the ankle twisted abnormally far to the right and trailing slightly behind the other.

She gasped as she suddenly recognized who it was, and the figure finally spoke.

"_What the hell_," Minato rasped, "_is going on here?_"

Many things can be said about Takeba Yukari. But despite what she sometimes believed, one of them is _not _that she is totally useless.

She leapt up and dashed forward, stopping for a moment by the boy to swing his arm over her shoulders as she said authoritatively, "We're going to the hospital. _Now._" Minato nodded weakly in agreement, inhaling sharply as they took a step forward. Crimson seeped through Yukari's clothes as she slammed the door open with her foot and practically carried the boy outside, making sure to keep him off of his clearly broken leg while taking a left down the road towards the hospital. The dorm's door was left hanging open, and blood slowly dripped down its frame and soiled the welcome mat below as the sound of feet and gasps of pain faded into the distance.

* * *

**AN: Oh, **_**man, **_**this chapter was fun to write!**

**Side note… did you guys know that any pictures on have to be in 6x9 format? 'Cuz I sure didn't until I had finished my 8.5x11 cover pic for this story…**

**Anyways, shout outs to: **_**ademolix**_**, **_**MarkOfGod**_**, **_**GdGsflame**_**, **_**crymblade**_**, **_**Chris ShadowMoon**_**, **_**wisdom668**_**, **_**Meia42**_**, **_**DogKnight**_**, s**_**hanagan**_**, and **_**Teal96ko**_** for following; **_**ademolix**_**, **_**GdGsflame**_**, **_**blarg7865**_**, **_**Meia42**_**, and **_**Teal96ko**_** for faving; and last but not least, **_**gerson**_**, **_**blarg7865**_**, **_**crymblade**_**, and **_**Gue3t**_** for reviewing.**

**(And in response to Gue3t: Thanks for reviewing, I'm glad to hear you're liking the humor so far! And if by 'overdone setting' you mean the 'Minato goes back in time' plot, then yeah, I agree with you there. But hopefully I'm adding enough new perspectives/ideas to keep you interested!)**

**One final thing: who here would be interested in a sort of "mythology corner" in the AN whenever new mythological concepts are introduced? Greek and Roman mythology is one of my favorite subjects, but I'd guess that some of you don't know what these terms/characters are referring to in mythological terms, or why they were put in the game. If enough of you are interested, I'd effing **_**love **_**to talk about myths and stuff after the normal chapters!**

**I'll set up a poll about this soon. Until then, feel free to drop a review or send a PM.**

**As always, thanks for reading, and I'll see you next week!**


	6. Chapter 6

_Chapter 6_

_Twenty minutes earlier…_

This was a terrible idea. A truly miserable, god-awful idea. And Minato knew what he was talking about.

Minato's excellent idea had been to distract the shadow long enough for Akihiko to escape back to the dorm, and then stall long enough for the veterans to finish off the lesser shadow. And it had started off _brilliantly_. Getting the shadow's attention was easy; the shadow had labeled him as more interesting than Akihiko when he'd waved the meager kitchen knife he stole from the dorm as protection (since there was no way he was getting into the locked and protected armory) at the monster. Almost as simple was getting it to follow him, which just involved running away, since this shadow (like most) operated under the predatory instinct that equated anything that ran with prey, and put everything else on the backburner.

Minato had guessed all of that would happen from his past experiences with shadows. Hell, he'd even re-familiarized himself with the city's layout by walking around the town last night. What he _hadn't _known was just how much he had overestimated his current abilities in the dark hour.

Minato careened down the empty streets unstably, barely staying on his feet as he resisted the urge to vomit from dark hour adjustment. Behind him, he heard the shadow roar, but it was different from than the noises it made when chasing the boxer. It sounded less intimidating, and more hesitating, starting and stopping in short bursts almost like it…

Ah. The shadow was _laughing_ at him.

He couldn't really blame it. Minato would've laughed at himself too if he could just _breathe_.

Gasping desperately, he rounded a corner and flipped his head around to look for the shadow, vision blurring as he did so. With his attention in back of him, he slipped on a blood puddle and splashed down with a startled cry.

As he quickly scrambled to get back up, the shadow slammed down right next to him, chortling in its creepy, deep-throated manner. It swiped at him with one of its bare hands, but Mianto was already on the move, and the shadow's hand clipped the back of the boy's coat.

_Way too close!_

Minato heard and felt the shadow leap onto another building, but he risked looking down at his analog watch. He'd been running for a grand total of… four minutes?

Crap. It had felt like an eternity.

Still, Minato thought through his needy breaths, given how far from the dorm he was, it'd probably be alright for him to lead the monster back over now. By the time he got back, the veterans would probably be done with their shadow. With that hopeful thought, he rounded a corner into a back alley, swerving through dumpsters and tin trashcans until he got to a chain link fence that separated the alleys. Grabbing onto a closed dumpster, he hauled himself onto its top before bolting to its edge and preparing to jump for the top of the fence.

It didn't go as he planned. Getting nausea at the worst possible moment, he slipped on the edge of the dumpster, tripping and falling hard onto the ground with a grunt. Just then, he heard a _clang _from the area where he had been planning to jump. Looking up blearily, he saw a knife fall to the floor, clattering to rest next to his face. But how…

Minato's eyes widened as he looked back. The shadow's arms were reared back, most of them equipped with glinting knives.

Huh. Throwing knives? _That_ was new.

The boy quickly rolled behind a dumpster, while the place he had been lying a moment earlier was suddenly filled with knives hurled at an alarming rate. He grimaced. No way was he going to climb the fence now that the monster had a ranged attack, so he'd need to get out of the alley and find another way around. Gripping his pathetically small blade tighter in his right hand, Minato blew out a breath as he waited for the assault to end.

As the clanging of knives slowed, he swallowed, before leaping up as they stopped completely. Bolting out in front of the dumpster, Minato raised his knife and prepared to throw-

He had miscalculated. The monster, now unexpectedly standing right in front of the boy, grabbed him by his midsection with a massive hand, cutting of his breath and making him drop the knife in surprise. It gave a bellow of triumph before leaning back and chucking him over the fence.

Minato tried to turn around to prepare a roll as he sailed through the air, but once again, vertigo kicked in. Unable to properly adjust, he landed straight on his back, and had the breath knocked out of him as he slid to a halt. He staggered to his feet as fast as he could, clutching his chest with one hand while watching the shadow easily clamber over the fence from his peripheral vision. He got just enough breath to start dashing (jogging, really, but whatever) towards the main street, but he looked around in surprise when he exited the alley. Only one block away from him was-

_The dorm? I'm only one block away from the dorm? How disoriented __**am**__ I?_

The blue-haired boy let out a sigh of relief as he approached the front entrance of the dorm. Now if he could find his senpais…

Suddenly, his legs fell out from under him, and he glanced down to see a shadowy hand grabbing his left ankle. _What?! _He knew the dark hour adjustment phase was bad, but not being able to sense a large shadow right next to him?! This was pathetic!

Any further commentary was suspended as the shadow dragged him into the dark alley adjacent to the dorm. With a strange snicker, it held him up by his left leg, dangling him like a fish on a hook, and sliced downwards with a particularly large hand. Minato dodged with a twist of his body as the knife whistled by, and he swiftly disarmed a different, smaller hand before severing it with the stolen blade. The shadow yowled in pain as its hand fell to the ground with a _splat_, and Minato reversed the swing to lop off the hand holding him. However, before he could finish his strike, the shadow swung the boy's body around, slamming him into the dorm's outer wall legs first.

Only Minato could hear the distinct _snap_ of his leg.

He tried to scream, but his breath had once again been knocked out of him, and he instead let out a nearly inaudible, high-pitched whimper as his face contorted in pain. Dropping him in a bloody puddle with disgust, the shadow leaned over and swiped down with a few of its larger arms, still equipped with knives.

This time, they didn't miss.

Minato could only guess that he had passed out for a moment, because when he came to, the shadow was no longer looking at him. It was staring up at the dorm's roof, and it only took a second for the boy to guess why when he heard a familiar voice.

"_Alright, we should be safe up here."_

Oh, no.

Dissipating its blades into smoke, the shadow began scaling the building towards the sound of the voice. Minato supposed that, since he hadn't been moving, the activity on the roof was much more interesting to the instinct-driven shadow.

Unfortunately, that was _not _what he wanted.

No, no, _NO!_

He tried to yell at the shadow, but could only wheeze and cough, still not having entirely regained his breath. He stood up and took a step forward, only for pain to explode through his left leg, causing him to let out a strangled cry and drop gracelessly to the ground.

He rolled over, struggling to keep his eyes open through the pain, and could only watch helplessly as the shadow clambered over the edge of the building and disappeared from view.

_Please, please, please…_

Seconds agonizingly ticked by. As his breath came in and out in harsh rasps, Minato unconsciously moved his right hand to his aching chest, only partially noticing how thoroughly blood-soaked it was as he focused his eyes upwards.

Suddenly, from the top of the roof, there came an ear-splitting roar. Minato sighed in relief as the resulting shockwave rained light dust and debris on him. He never thought he'd be so happy to hear _that _sound again.

He only partially paid attention to the commotion on the roof after that, as he struggled to get on his feet by grabbing onto nearby poles, walls, and pretty much anything else he could hold with his bloodied hands. Leaning heavily on the side of the dorm, Minato began limping his way out, coughing mixed in with his ragged breaths. As he got halfway through the alleyway, he heard the door slam and watched Mitsuru and Akihiko dash by, with the boxer carrying a limp burden on his shoulder.

Even though he knew exactly what was happening, Minato still tensed for a moment, briefly ignoring the pain coming from everywhere. _Hamu!_

Crap. He'd really messed up.

However, he hadn't seen any injuries on his twin, which meant it was just exhaustion, and it seemed like Akihiko wasn't hurt either. Trying to focus on those positives, he slowly made his way back to the dorm's front door.

After several more minutes of struggling, he finally made it. Minato grasped the outer edges of the door tightly for support, blood already imprinting his handprint on the frame, before stretching a trembling, maroon-tainted hand towards the handle. He slipped once, twice, _thrice _on the door before finally opening it with a slam, and startling the person inside.

"O-Oh, Senpais! I didn't know you'd be back so soon, how's she-"

Yukari's voice chirped out uncertainly until she turned and laid her eyes on him. The girl froze in horror, gaze flicking between his broken leg, shorn torso, and the massive amounts of gore oozing from him.

Minato's hazy mind almost made him blurt out _you know,_ _most people pay for this view_, but he fortunately decided to go for the more orthodox approach.

"_What the hell_," he asked, "_is going on here?_"

Inwardly, he was pretty proud of his acting job, although the sheer amount of pain he was in made most of the acting unnecessary. He was even more pleased when he saw his teammate take action, leaping forward to support him without questioning herself once.

"We're going to the hospital. _Now,_" she ordered, and Minato had no objections. The duo made their way outside and turned left towards the hospital, with Minato fully leaning on her and occasionally hissing in pain as they moved down the street.

* * *

Mitsuru kept her gaze firmly forward as she paced back and forth through the hallway, her boots _click-clacking_ on the sterile floor as she attempted to remain somewhat regal in her stiff movements. Passing a room labeled _special care _for the umpteenth time, she determinedly set her eyes forward and kept most of her inner turmoil out of her expression. But she couldn't quite stop herself from peeking through the room's window out of the corner of her eye, and glancing at the slight girl who'd taken the fall for Mitsuru's failure as a senpai.

They had gotten to the hospital in record time, mostly due to Akihiko's pace. Nearly crashing through the automatic screen doors in their haste, they had rushed to a sectioned-off area of the Emergency Room where one doctor familiar with the… _current situation…_ presided. That doctor didn't even need to ask what the problem was before accepting the light girl from Akihiko and taking her into the room for a check-up, followed after a few minutes by a young nurse.

That had been ten minutes ago, little more than the blink of an eye for people in the medical field. But not knowing what was happening to their kohai made the veterans, dare she say it, _really damn jumpy_. And since neither Mitsuru nor Akihiko were particularly interested in any of the fashion or car magazines strewn about the small end table, all there was to do was take in the sight of white walls and smell of alcohol wipes. For the action-oriented duo, it was hell.

The redhead moved by Akihiko, who was doing his best impression of an ornery statue with stiffly folded arms and stony expression, and glanced at the door impatiently again. To be truthful, she was only a few minutes away from breaking the stupid thing down. She _needed _to get in there, to make sure the energetic girl survived this, because… because she just had to! The cheery Arisato hadn't even been introduced to the concept of personas, evokers, or even the damn _dark hour _before being forced to summon a persona and fight a shadow leagues beyond what anyone had ever seen before. And Mitsuru _still _didn't know where the girl's brother was, although with what she had seen and heard about the shadow's abilities, it was all too likely that he had stopped breathing an hour ago.

That last thought was almost too much for Mitsuru to handle. She clenched her fists and jaw tightly as she turned on her heel at the end of the hallway, blinking rapidly to… keep something out of her eyes.

_Shit._ The name _Kirijo_ was really becoming a curse, wasn't it?

Before Mitsuru had the chance to think any further, the door slid open and a doctor with disheveled, greying brown hair padded out, clipboard held loosely in one hand while the other was tucked in his white lab coat's pocket. He nodded at Akihiko, who returned the gesture mechanically, before turning to Mitsuru.

"No worries, Kirijo-san," the doctor said in a strange combination of informal language and an authoritative voice, "The girl's fine. I've never seen a case of dark hour exhaustion this bad, but that's all it is. She'll be right as rain in several days."

"Several _days, _Sho… Hashino-san?" Mitsuru repeated incredulously, while the man raised his eyebrows at her slip. "How on earth could someone get this bad and still be… alive?"

"That's what I was gonna ask _you_, actually," the doctor, Hashino, replied as he plucked out a blue pen resting in his ear and pointed it at the clipboard. "Zero abnormalities in respiratory functioning, and it's the same story with her cardio functioning, circulatory functioning, etcetera, etcetera. This girl seems to be perfectly alright, except her extremities are frigid, and her head's burning up without the usual flush of a fever." A pager in the doctor's pocket went off, and he absently silenced the device as he glanced up at Mitsuru. "I'm sure you recognize those symptoms, but this is the worst case of persona-related exhaustion I've ever seen. The hell did she do, summon _two _of the things?"

"Yes," the seniors responded tiredly.

Hashino blinked at them, then glanced back down at his clipboard. "Huh," he muttered, "Then this actually makes a lot of sense." He popped the cap off of his pen and started scrawling more notes down as he walked back into the room. "C'mon, you two, I know you guys wanna see her. Though I've gotta warn you, there's nothing much you can do right now."

The trio walked into the room, and Hashino's pager started chirping again, making him curse and fumble around in his pocket until the noise stopped. The nurse looked up from her work on the tiny girl as they entered, slightly bowing to Mitsuru and flashing a small smile in Akihiko's direction (not that he noticed), before returning to her task of setting up Hamuko's intravenous machine. She had just finished sticking the girl's hand with a needle, and was now taping it tightly while Hashino began punching numbers into the machine connected to the motionless girl. After another moment of button pressing, the machine whirred to life, and clear fluids started dripping down through the tube.

The brunet doctor moved over to the nurse to double check the taping, but his pager went off a third time as he reached for Hamuko's needled hand. "Oh, for cryin' out loud," he muttered, taking out his pager and looking at the number on it. He replaced it with a small sliding phone and rapidly dialed a number before hitting the speakerphone icon, and placed the device on a silver tray next to Hamuko's hospital bed.

The person who had been paging him immediately picked up. "_Hashino-senpai! Oh, thank God you called back, we need you down here right now!_"

The man in question frowned. "I'm in the middle of something important here. I'm sure there's someone else who can help you out."

"_There might be, but-"_

"Then get them to do it, please. This patient is at the top of my priorities, and-"

"_I'm sorry Hashino-senpai, but _this_ patient down here is the one who needs to take precedence right now!_" the person on the phone interrupted, sounding panicked. "_There's a lot of blood loss and a broken leg, and this girl here, Takeba Yukari, specifically requested you!_"

As soon as she heard the name, Mitsuru leapt up, blood like ice in her veins. "I apologize for barging in like this, but _please let me talk with her!_"

A short silence, then, "_S-Senpai?"_

Yukari sounded breathless over the phone, like she'd been exerting herself greatly... or she'd been heavily injured. "Takeba! Are you alright?!"

"_I'm not the one you need to be worried about! I-It's Minato-kun!_"

Mitsuru froze as Yukari continued._ "We can't stop the bleeding, but t-there's a lot of it, and I think he's fading in and out of consciousness! I need you all down here right now! Please!"_

"Yukari, calm down," Akihiko interjected, and Mitsuru almost winced at his typical blunt lack of an honorific. "We'll be down in a moment. Do you still have your evoker with you?"

"_Uh, yeah,_" Yukari replied, a little off-kilter at the sudden question. "_Why?_"

"Doesn't matter, just have it ready. Until then, get Minato to a private room, alright? And tell that doctor you're with which way you're headed so we can find you quicker."

"_A-Alright. You can count on me!"_

"Good. See you there."

Akihiko hit the red disconnect button, and flew out the door without another word. Mitsuru sighed shakily in relief as she digested what she'd just heard.

They were still alive. Everyone was still alive. Injured, perhaps massively so, but… alive.

"…I'd better go after him. Akihiko's a fighter, not a healer. Will you be coming too, Hashino-san?"

"In a sec," the doctor replied. "I don't think I'll be able to do much while you kids do your tricks, and I've gotta make sure that this girl here's all set up. You make sure that other kid's alright, ok?"

Mitsuru nodded as she turned her back on the other two and walked towards the door. "…I'll make sure he survives," she promised quietly. "And then I'm going to _kill him myself _for being such a fool_._"

She slipped through the doors and slid them shut behind her, stopping to take another relieved, quivering breath before leaning back on the door. The redhead heard Hashino laugh and mutter, "Ah, youth" from inside the room, but she ignored it as she covered her eyes with one hand as a watery smile came over her lips.

_Alive. They're all alive._

* * *

**AN: Look, guys! It's my first (and probably only) OC! What do you think of him?**

**Shout outs to: **_**hitmanmonlee**_**, **_**Xanxux**_**, **_**Asahar4**_**, and **_**Wighty Zalymun**_** for following **_**and **_**faving, and **_**crymblade**_**, **_**Gue3t**_**, **_**MarkOfGod**_**, **_**Hoshiro Raider**_**, and **_**Asahar4**_** for reviewing.**

**[In response to Gue3t: Hopefully this chapter answered your questions. And thanks for being interested in Myth corner, please let me know what you think of this chapter's edition!]**

**Last week, I asked you all if you'd like a 'Mythology Corner' section where I go over myth concepts in more detail. I got one 'Sure' and one 'I'm fine with it' in response, so Mythology Corner is a go! This week, we'll be talking about the best musician in Greek myth (and a character that is so complicated that I probably shouldn't be starting out this section with him): Orpheus!**

* * *

_**MYTHOLOGY CORNER!**_

**WARNING: GREEK MYTHOLOGY IS **_**M-RATED**_**, AND THERE ARE OFTEN THINGS IN THESE MYTHS THAT WILL MAKE PEOPLE UNCOMFORTABLE! TURN BACK NOW IF YOU'RE NOT READY!**

_**Orpheus:**_

_**Who was he?**_** As with all myths, there are differing stories on Orpheus' origins. The version I like says that he was the son of Apollo (the god of arts, medicine, and knowledge, among other things), and a muse (one of the goddesses of inspiration for the arts). With heritage like that, it's not really surprising that Orpheus was considered to be the most talented musician and poet of his time.**

**Orpheus fell in love with a woman named Eurydice, and they were soon married (Like, really soon; think within a 2-day period). However, at their wedding, a satyr (half-man and half-goat) tried to "abduct" her (read: rape her), and she fell into a nest of vipers trying to escape. She was bitten on the heel, and the venom killed her in seconds.**

**That was a major bummer for Orpheus. However, he decided that he wasn't going to give up on her yet. Using his music, he broke into the underworld and made his way past Charon (ferryman for the River Styx), Cerberus (three-headed guard dog of the underworld; we'll talk about him more when Koromaru's introduced), and eventually made it all the way to the chambers of Hades (Ruler of the underworld) and his wife Persephone. Using his music, Orpheus managed to charm the two of them into letting Eurydice back into the world above… **_**if **_**Orpheus could restrain himself from looking back at her until they exit the underworld. As you've probably guessed, Orpheus looks back just a few steps away from the world of the living, and loses Eurydice forever.**

**After losing his wife, he refused all advances from women for the rest of his life. That pissed a lot of them off, and a special bunch called the Maenads, followers of Dionysos (the god of wine and madness), decided to do something about it. As he was playing music near a stream one day, they tried to assault him with sticks and stones. Sadly for them, his music was just **_**so good **_**that the objects refused to hit him. Enraged even further, they simply attacked him with their hands… and succeeded. Orpheus was dismembered (he was ripped apart limb from limb), and the victorious women tossed his decapitated head down the stream with his lyre (basically, a harp), where his last words were muttered incomprehensibly to the rocks and waters.**

_**Why is he the MC's initial persona?**_** [SPOILERS!] This is where things get a little complicated. First and foremost, Orpheus' journey to the underworld and back is a perfect representation of MC's death and sort-of rebirth as the Great Seal. Not to mention, pretty much everyone loved Orpheus and his music, just like how everyone loves MC. Sure, at the end of Orpheus' tale, the fact that he was ripped apart would seem to imply that some people don't like him. But remember that they didn't like him because he rejected them as lovers, so at one point, they were **_**very**_** attracted to him.**

** Now, one of the most surprising ways that Orpheus fits as MC's persona is his relation to Messiah. For those who don't know about/were slightly confused by the end of P3 (and I only say this because I finally figured out the 'mechanics' of the Great Seal a few days ago), he called on the power of the Universe arcana to summon his ultimate persona Messiah, who turned him into the Great Seal. You wouldn't think that a concept from Greek myth would have any relation to such a clearly Christian reference, but it's not only related, it is **_**directly **_**related to one of Christianity's most important figures: Jesus.**

** This isn't true for just the game: parallels between Jesus and Orpheus have been drawn ****throughout history****. Do they both come back from the dead? **_**Check**_**. Do they both perform miracles? **_**Check**_**. Orpheus was even considered a prophet by some, like Jesus was, so there's another **_**check**_**. These parallels run so deep that they became a major part of the Christian faith itself before Christianity became widespread. See, in the catacombs of Rome (basically, a massive set of tombs that run underneath large parts of Rome), there are paintings of Orpheus that represent a resting place for a buried Christian. Before Christianity became legal in Rome around 313 AD (thanks to the **_**Edict of Milan**_**), Christians weren't allowed to be buried in the Catacombs. So, to be buried in the Catacombs **_**and **_**retain their religion, early Christians resorted to having pictures of Orpheus painted on/by their graves to show their true religion, meaning that they accepted Orpheus as a... well, maybe not _acceptable _substitute for their true messiah, but at least a pagan alternative that would be better than nothing.**

…**Ok, that was a little off-topic. But basically, there are a ton of connections between Orpheus, Messiah, and the MC.**

* * *

**Phew… That was nuts.**

**Anyways, did you like it? Should I add more detail (dunno if that's even possible), or leave some of it out? Basically, is there anything I can change to make it better? As always, drop a review or send a PM to let me know!**

**Next week, we'll talk about everyone's favorite personification of death: Thanatos! And some more hospital shenanigans ensue, too.**

**Until then, thanks for reading, and I'll see you all next week!**


	7. Chapter 7

_Chapter 7_

It was easy for Akihiko to find the private room Yukari had chosen. All he had to do was follow the splotches of drying blood on the otherwise spotless floor.

The boxer tore through the hallway haphazardly. He kept his gaze downward to follow his kohais' bloody trail, not even processing the yelps of surprise and indignation from the people he narrowly dodged as he sent paperwork flying off counters in his wake. He pivoted around a corner, and one of the doctors started in surprise before quickly pointing to a door a few meters away. Akihiko skidded to a halt and threw the door open, dashing inside and promptly closing it behind him.

The room was set up in the same way as nearly all of the rooms in the hospital. A white bed with white sheets lay near a shuttered white window, giving the room a bleached feeling. On one side of the bed was a nondescript white (ugh, seriously?) drawer, while on the other there was a small white night table, heaped with… red-tainted gauze?

Yukari didn't even look up from Minato's body as the boxer entered. Continuing to try and stop the bleeding with masses of bandages in her latex-gloved hands, she frantically motioned at the senior. "Senpai! Get over here, you need to help Minato, quickly!"

"Yukari, what you're doing now isn't really helpful," he replied bluntly as he squatted next to the sickly teen on the bed. "With this amount of bleeding he's gonna need something more than those bandages."

The girl blanched and looked up. "Then what are we going to-?"

She stopped talking and widened her eyes as Akihiko stood up and took out his evoker. Firing at his forehead, Akihiko spoke a word as Polydeuces swirled into existence by its summoner's side.

"_Dia!_"

As usual, the blond persona raised its drill. But instead of causing an attack, a soft light appeared above Minato's body, wrapping it in green. A gasp was heard as Minato's wounds slowly started to close up.

Akihiko saw Yukari smile shakily in relief as the light spread over the boy's body. Before he fully healed, however, the persona and light dissipated, and Minato restarted his rasping.

"That's all I have left," Akihiko panted, now leaning against a wall. "The rest is up to you, Yukari."

The brunette froze at the boxer's words. "What?!" She hissed. "You don't mean-! I c-c-c…I _can't_ _do that_!" she spat out, looking like she'd rather swallow poison than repeat that. "I c-couldn't even summon my persona when the situation was life or death, Senpai! How the hell do you expect-"

"The situation still _is _life and death!" The senior retorted, then had to take a moment to catch his breath. "We don't know if those knives had some sort of substance on them, and I'm not about to risk some kind of shadow-based bacteria infection! And he's _still _bleeding out!" Akihiko pointed his evoker at the boy, whose blood had now stained the bandages Yukari had put on and was slowly leaking onto the hospital bed below him. "Yukari, Minato needs help right now, and you're the only one who can give it!"

"W-wait… Gimme a sec, I need-"

"You're being ridiculous." Akihiko walked over to the girl and grabbed her shoulders with both hands as they made eye contact. "There's no reason that you should be waiting! None! _Help him_!"

Yukari stared fearfully back at the boxer, hesitance clearly written all over her face. Without waiting for a proper response, the boxer lifted his hands from Yukari's shoulders and took her evoker from her hip. He presented it to her with the barrel pointed towards himself. "Come on, Yukari. You can do this."

The girl took the silver gun with unsteady hands. Akihiko nodded reassuringly to her as she slowly brought the device to her face, and the cold metal touched her forehead. She turned back to the blue-haired boy, who had started coughing lightly as his eyes scrunched tighter in pain. While Yukari gathered up courage, she took a deep breath, twitching her finger closer and closer to the trigger, and finally touching it and beginning to squeeze…

Before she relaxed, taking a shuddering gasp and squinting her eyes in frustrated anger.

Akihiko sighed a little and bowed his head as he sat down in one of the guest chairs. He could practically hear Yukari's consternation without looking at her, and he decided to give her a little privacy by facing away from her. "…It's alright, Yukari," he assured. "There'll be other opportunities. Let's just let Mitsuru handle this one."

_Smash!_

Akihiko straightened in surprise at the telltale shattering noise, and he whipped his head around to see familiar blue-tinted glass fly out of Yukari's head, bouncing off of the wall and swirling next to her. A figure was formed from the dancing glass, taking the shape of a bound and chained blonde trapped inside the head of a metallic bull. Light from the hospital's fluorescent bulbs glinted off the persona, making Akihiko squint from his seat.

"…I-Io! _Dia!_"

Yukari sounded just as surprised as Akihiko felt, but the same gentle light swept over Minato's body, embracing his frame as the bleeding once again halted. After the persona disappeared, Yukari took another moment before firing again, and again, and one last time, each attempt taking less effort than the last. After her fourth firing, she stopped to look at the boy in the bed as his breathing returned to normal, and a look of peaceful relief softened his face. Yukari loosened her grip on the gun and let out the breath she'd been holding.

"I knew you could do it," Akihiko's voice rang out with a smile, making the girl jump and almost fire her evoker again. "I don't know why you doubt yourself so much."

"It's not _me _that I'm doubting," the girl replied with a bit of a huff as she slowed her heart down. "It's… well, the _gun_. Of all the things to make evokers out of, why'd they have to make it a gun?"

Akihiko looked at the silver handgun in the girl's hand. It really _was_ strange, and he had no idea why they had made it that way… even though he was almost positive Mitsuru had explained the reason at some point. "Hell if I know," he said with a shrug. "I just do what I'm told."

Yukari almost snorted in her attempt to conceal her light laughter, shifting her head to hide her face from her senpai.

The room fell into a semi-comfortable silence after that, the two impromptu doctors resting while their patient nodded off. After another minute, however, the brunette spoke up again. "Hey… Senpai? Why's Minato-kun's leg still…?"

Akihiko turned and followed her extended finger, pointing to Minato's left leg. The boy in question had now completely fallen asleep after the initial healing, but his leg was still clearly bent nearly 90 degrees too far to the right. The boxer mentally cursed himself and leapt to the boy's side. He was an athlete, _dammit_, how could he be so stupid about _this_?!

He tore back the remains of Minato's pant leg and cursed out loud. The boy's leg had swollen up into a grape-purple blotch, much too large for the boy's slender frame. Akihiko lifted the leg up, pushing down the flicker of guilt that lit up when Minato awakened with a small cry of pain.

"Senpai?" Yukari asked worriedly from behind him. "I'm guessing that's not supposed to happen…?"

Akihiko loudly exhaled from his nose. "No, it's not, and it _wouldn't _have if I hadn't been so stupid. You're supposed to elevate a broken ankle so it doesn't… y' know, swell like this."

"But I healed him, right? Or…"

"It's not your fault, I just don't think _dia _is good enough to fix breaks. You'd need a higher-ranked healing spell for that."

Yukari hummed in acknowledgement. But she still rested her eyes on the injured boy with no small concern as the room again fell into silence.

Another moment or two passed before the door slid open, and a familiar redheaded face entered the room. "Are you two all right? How's he…"

Mitsuru laid her eyes on Minato's contorted face, before turning to Akihiko with a raised eyebrow. The boxer sheepishly turned his gaze away from Mitsuru. "I messed up," he admitted. "I forgot to elevate the leg, so it's pretty damn swollen."

"…So I see," Mitsuru replied. "But at least you got his other wounds healed."

"Actually, it wasn't me." He tilted his head in Yukari's direction. "You can give the credit to this girl here. First persona summon in a high-stress situation, if memory serves."

Yukari's cheeks tinged pink as she shook her head. "T-This wasn't really high-stress, y' know… and I… probably couldn't have done it if I was alone…" she muttered darkly.

"Actually, I'll have to agree with Akihiko here," Mitsuru replied, ignoring the other girl's negative musings as usual. "You performed a critical operation in a time of great need, most likely helping Arisato avoid serious harm. Great job, Takeba." A light smile ghosted over the redhead's face.

The addressed girl awkwardly adjusted her bangs and looked to the side. Akihiko could practically see her going through possible responses in her mind before she responded with a stilted, "…Thanks, Senpai."

Without waiting for the conversation to descend further into awkwardness, the brunette stood up and walked over to the waste disposal area, slipping her medical gloves off and trashing them in a red biohazard container. "I think I'd better get back to the dorm," she told them while washing her hands. "I don't think I'll be much help here anymore, right? No point in staying, especially since there's school in a few hours."

Mitsuru nodded. "That's fine, Takeba. Thanks again for your help."

"It wasn't a problem," she replied quickly... maybe a little _too _quickly.

Regardless, Yukari dried her hands and walked to the door with a wave in her seniors' direction, exiting the room without another word. When the door slid shut with a _click, _Mitsuru let out a breath and collapsed into one of the chairs, much too similar to a puppet cut from its strings for comfort. The boxer looked over in alarm. "You alright, Mitsuru?"

She didn't even glance over at him. "…I'm fine, Akihiko."

"Like hell you are! How long has it been since the last time you lost your composure when someone was around, even me? And when was the last time you slept?"

"Too long ago, I'd guess," replied a deep voice before Mitsuru could reply. Akihiko looked to his left at the door, which slid open to reveal Hashino, ducking his head down as he stepped into the room. "Just professional intuition here… I'd guess you haven't slept in two days?"

Akihiko looked sharply over at Mitsuru, who sighed. "You're wrong."

"Ah, three days then?"

The redhead attempted her icy death-glare at the doctor, but the effect was totally nullified by her slouched posture, disheveled hair, and the fact that Hashino was totally ignoring her look as he examined Minato's bulging leg. Mitsuru angrily blew a piece of her hair out of the way as she folded her arms. "Don't act like you know _everything _about my life, Shoji."

The doctor stopped his examination to turn and give Mitsuru an incredulous look. "Did you just call me _Shoji? _Mitsuru, when was the last time you called me that?"

"…Fifth grade," she muttered sullenly.

"Fourth," Hashino corrected. "Mitsuru, how're you still _conscious_? You're so tired you're using the name you called me when you were _ten years old_. Take a nap in that chair you're in, for God's sake, before you collapse and your Dad skins me alive for not lettin' you rest."

Mitsuru glanced over at the barely conscious boy, but Hashino interrupted again. "No way, Mitsuru, you are _not _interrogating this poor kid anytime soon. Go. Sleep_. Now._"

It was another sign of just how utterly exhausted the Kirijo heir was that she didn't really argue the point further. She grumbled something to herself in protest, but shifted her position around and rested her head against the hard wall without anymore sound.

Hashino glanced over at Akihiko, who was looking at him with an eyebrow raised. "You two know each other?"

"She never told you?" Akihiko gave him a look that smacked of _Are you kidding me?_, and he chuckled. "Ah, nevermind, of course she didn't. I'm a family friend, more or less: I've been the Kirijos' physician for years. Mitsuru always says my name with the '–san' in public because saying anything else is 'not proper conduct for a Kirijo,' or somethin' dumb like that."

Mitsuru again muttered something indignant and unintelligible from her seat in response. Akihiko gave the doctor a look, clearly saying '_she's hopeless.'_ The doctor returned a bemused smile in acknowledgement. '_Trust me,_ _I know.'_

Hashino then returned his focus to his patient, and sighed a little as he looked at Minato's leg again. "Looks like you and I were a little too slow," he muttered. "I heard he had knife wounds earlier, too?" Akihiko tightened his jaw and nodded his head slightly, and Hashino shook his head. "This poor kid. Had he even been introduced to Personas?"

"…No. It's a miracle he's still alive."

The doctor ran a weatherworn hand through his hair. "Hm. Well, I suppose he still _is _alive, and that's all that matters for now. Can you go grab this floor's ice machine for me?"

Akihiko had been injured enough that he knew exactly where all of the icing equipment was located on each of the floors. It helped that each hall was pretty much identical, anyways. He inclined his head and gave Minato's leg to Hashino, then left the room to pick up the equipment at the end of the hallway.

When Akihiko returned with the machine, the greying brunet had already propped Minato's leg up on a wadded bundle of pillows and sheets, shed his white lab coat (now draped over Mitsuru like a blanket), and stuck Minato with a needle in the crook of his left arm, opposite his elbow. Attached to the needle was a syringe filled with a milky white liquid, lying parallel to the boy's arm. "Sedative, for when we can set his leg," he explained when Akihiko's eyes wandered over it. "It's expensive, but I'm guessin' he's under the same Kirijo insurance as all of you kids. Although, honestly, I'd pay for his bills myself even if he weren't. Setting this leg'll hurt more than breaking it."

Akihiko nodded in understanding. Moving his eyes over the rest of the set-up, he involuntarily smiled a little when he saw the doctor's unique way to keep Minato's leg propped up. "That's not exactly what they teach you in med school, is it Hashino? ...-san?"

"'Course not, but whatever works, works." He replied. "And just drop the honorific if you want, I don't care for 'em either. Now hand over that machine, Akihiko. Please n' thanks n' all that."

The boxer obediently transferred the icing machine to the doctor's waiting hands with a snort. The doctor's lips twitched up at the sound of Akihiko's amusement, but he kept his gaze down as he unraveled the blue cloth attached to the machine and wrapped it around the boys' leg. He frowned as he noticed that the Velcro was on the wrong side.

"That's the wrong way, Hashino," Akihiko pointed out. "Try doing it like this." He proceeded to take the cloth away from Hashino and began twisting it in an intricate knot around the boy's leg, making it almost seem like an art.

After he completed it, he looked over at Hashino, who had a look of high amusement on his face. "Now, _that_, they don't teach at med school."

Akihiko shrugged sheepishly. "I doubt they teach it anywhere. This is just something I came up with on my own after my third break back in middle school. I dunno why it works, but this knot really gets the machine colder, faster."

"Did you say _third _break? In _middle school?_"

"Er, yeah?"

"…That doesn't strike you as odd?"

"Nah. It just strikes me as… well, _me._"

Hashino paused, then chuckled as he turned the machine on with a _click_. "Guess I can't argue with that one."

The ice machine began whirring as the room drifted into a comfortable near-silence, the two men keeping quiet as Minato's breaths became less prominent. After a while, Hashino spoke. "You might as well get some rest, kid. You're goin' to school tomorrow."

"…Yeah, I guess so," he replied, although flicking a worried gaze over the redhead passed out in the chair a few feet away. Cuddled up with Hashino's white lab coat, her nose barely peeking out over the top, she seemed… small. _Too_ small for the Kirijo heir famous for her _bufu_-rivaling freezing glares.

"Oh, don't worry about her. _She's _not going anywhere," Hashino promised, casting an eye over her as well. "Mitsu-chan'll be staying right where I can see her. I'll just write a doctor's note for her."

Nodding appreciatively at the doctor, Akihiko moved to get up. Suddenly, Minato gasped, causing him and Hashino to whirl their heads around and look him over in alarm… until they interpreted what he was saying.

"Haaa… Senpai's… called… Mitsu… chan…? Aahahahaha…"

He was obviously still more than a little dazed from the pain. But that little out-of-character comment was enough to make Akihiko start laughing, and Hashino soon joined in with deep chuckles. By the time the three stopped their sleep-deprived laughter, the earliest hints of dawn had stolen in through the blinds and painted the white room orange.

* * *

**AN: I just realized that I should probably tag Hamu in this story…**

**Shout outs to: **_**oxopoha**_**, **_**Pea Brain Writer**_**, **_**Raven Rein**_**, **_**Murdock93**_**, **_**lawlietbaba**_**, **_**Cheezeburger**_**, **_**sagitarius**_**, **_**emelian65**_**, **_**Lord Sake**_**, and **_**Incendie de Glace**_** for following; **_**Aeroskywind**_**, **_**Raven Rein**_**, **_**Akasui**_**, **_**Petrichor in May**_**, and **_**lawlietbaba**_** for faving; and **_**Chris ShadowMoon**_**, **_**Doom Marine 54**_**, **_**Asahar4**_**, **_**Gue3t**_**, **_**Hoshiro Raider**_**, **_**crymblade**_**, **_**DarthPrince**_**, and **_**emelian65**_** for reviewing!**

**[In response to gue3t: :D]**

**Also, I've been getting a bunch of questions and suggestions about/for Minato's personas and powers. I'd like to say thanks to everyone who's done that… but I should probably explain what the deal is with Minato.**

**Minato is a **_**normal persona user**_**. You'll see what the deal is with him and the velvet room soon, but he won't have any special powers. Multiple personas? Nope. Fusion? Not here. Compendium? Nonexistent. However, he still has his own fighting abilities, so when he gets back into the fight, he's not gonna be totally nerfed. Also, in terms of his social skills (academic, charm, and courage), he's maxed… **_**but**_**, he's not always gonna show it, since he knows that this is Hamuko's show now. Not to mention that he doesn't necessarily **_**want **_**to be the most popular kid in school, even if he has the ability to be.**

**Hopefully that clears a few things up, but let me know if you need some more clarification! Now, it's time for another episode of…**

* * *

_**MYTHOLOGY CORNER!**_

**WARNING: GREEK MYTHOLOGY IS ****M-RATED****, AND THERE ARE OFTEN THINGS IN THESE MYTHS THAT WILL MAKE PEOPLE UNCOMFORTABLE! TURN BACK NOW IF YOU AREN'T READY!**

_**Thanatos:**_

_**Who was he?**_** Thanatos was the ancient Greek god of Death, and the son of Erebus (the god of Darkness) and Nyx (The goddess of Night), as well as the twin brother of Hypnos (the god of sleep). He also has a ridiculous number of siblings aside from his twin, including Geras (god of Old Age), Oizys (god of Suffering), Moros (god of Doom) and Nemesis (goddess of Retribution/Revenge), among many other negatively oriented deities.**

**Thanatos had the job of leading people to the underworld (Hades), although his job was often superseded by Hermes (the Messenger god). This has led some mythologists to speculate that at one point, Thanatos and Hermes were actually the same god, or that Thanatos is just a separated attribute of Hermes.**

**Depending on the myth, Thanatos sometimes hated (and was hated by) many of the gods, and was considered indiscriminate and often merciless in his duties. However, that doesn't mean that he couldn't be tricked or beaten. Sisyphus (The king of Korinth, known for his trickery) tricked Thanatos into his own shackles, stopping death for the period of time that the god was chained. Similarly, Heracles successfully wrestled the god to the ground, preventing Thanatos from taking the wife (Alcestis) of a man (Admetus) who had shown hospitality to the hero.**

**A common misconception about the "death god" in Greek and Roman mythology is that Hades (which is both the name of the underworld **_**and **_**the name of its ruler) is the Greek god of death. However, that's not true. You can look at Hades as the "ruler of the underworld" and the "god **_**of the dead**_**." However, Thanatos is the "god **_**of death**_**." Basically, Hades rules over the underworld, and is thus the god of the dead (i.e. he is the ruler of the dead's souls), but Thanatos is the god of death itself.**

**Thanatos also had many symbols representing him, such as the Greek letter **_**theta**_**, the poppy, and an inverted torch. The most interesting one for us? The butterfly! …Make what you will of that.**

_**Why does is he in the game?**_** [SPOILERS!] Well, hopefully you understand the main reason at this point, but I'll spell it out: Thanatos = death, in Greek & Roman myth and in Persona.**

**Having said that, there are some more interesting connections that require a little more thought. First, the fact that he's the child of Nyx and Erebus is very symbolic. We know that Ryoji is the Avatar of Nyx, and since Ryoji = Thanatos, the decision to make Thanatos Nyx's avatar might make more sense now: after all, he's her son!**

**Even more interesting is the relationships between Thanatos and his siblings. As explained above, Thanatos is siblings with Moros, and is the twin of Hypnos. Those other two gods should sound familiar because they're also personas: Moros is Jin's persona, and Hypnos is Takaya's. This, of course, directly links Strega to Thanatos (and thus Nyx), but it also links **_**Minato **_**to **_**Takaya.**_

**It's pretty well set in stone that Takaya is supposed to be Minato's foil or "shadow figure" (to use the term from Jungian psychology). This is due to their dual roles as leaders and messiahs (well, fake messiah in Takaya's case). Now, however, we can see another connection: their personas are **_**effing twins**_**! I don't think you can get more direct proof of their relation than that.**

* * *

**Phew! That was pretty disjointed, but hopefully it wasn't too bad for you all.**

**Got any comments, criticisms, or compliments (about myth corner **_**or **_**the story)? Drop a review or send a PM!**

**Thanks for reading, and I'll see you all next week!**


	8. Chapter 8

_Chapter 8_

There was something… different about the Velvet Room, Minato realized.

It wasn't the blue carpeting, or the blue ceiling. They were the same as ever, with the lights from the ceiling shining down onto a circular table with a blue tablecloth draped over it. It wasn't the elevator's gauge, still swirling around in its (almost) endless countdown, hanging off of a grated wall that was backed by dark nothingness. It wasn't the wide blue armchair, seating a grinning old man with a prominent nose, and it wasn't the beaming attendant wearing a quirky blue dress and hat next to him.

Was it the fact that Minato and the chair he was resting in were on a wall?

Yes. Yes, that was probably it.

"I must say, Minato," the old man said, widening his permanent smile an imperceptible amount, "I have always thought you saw the world differently, but this is taking it quite literally, hmm?"

"Must you _always _be a little different from the rest of us? You are clearly what they call a… hipster!" The girl next to the old man replied, practically bouncing on her feet in excitement.

In the face of his two oldest friends, the gravity-defying boy allowed himself to relax. "I prefer to call myself a _trendsetter_, actually," he spoke out with an easy smile, leaning back against his chair with intricate blue wings engraved along its backrest instead of the familiar harp. "And before you call anyone else a hipster, you should take a look at that dress of yours, Elizabeth."

The girl took the slight insult in stride, ignoring it as she looked at the man in the armchair. Only many, many years of occasional contact with the eccentric let Minato see the touch of amusement in his expression as he gave a minute nod to the girl.

With a squeal, Elizabeth _flew._

"Minatooooo!"

She crashed into the boy on the wall heavily, knocking him to the ground (wall?) as she wrapped her skinny arms around him in a huge hug. "Do you realize how long it has been since I have been able to touch you? Do you!?"

Minato laughed as he returned the gesture from his downed position. "Far too long, I know. Although there's gotta be a better way to say that."

"Oh, _whatever_," Elizabeth retorted with a dramatic huff. "You are never satisfied."

Suddenly, she pulled back from the boy with a grin. "Ah, I knew there was something I forgot! Minato, I would love to introduce someone to you! Theo," she called out to a half-open door, between the one Minato usually used and another, new one, "Come on out!"

A panicked "Huh? Already?!" answered her, and the sound of crashing and falling items resonated from the doorway. After a second, a man with silver, partially slicked back hair poked his head out of the doorway, hat askew on his head. "Please forgive me," he spoke formally. "I shall be out in a moment."

"Theo-"

Elizabeth tried to interrupt, but the man had already popped his head back inside and closed the door. The girl sighed through her nose and shook her head. "Honestly. I think my brother believes you are your sister. He could not be further from the truth!"

"I know," Minato agreed with a solemn nod. "I'm much hotter than Hamu."

That earned him a light smack on the back of his head.

While Minato rubbed his head at the point of impact, Theo walked out of the blue door with a straight back and stiff movements. Elizabeth's brother (well, that was a guess, but who else could he be?) was tall, _very _tall, nearly a foot above Minato's more average height. He wore a strange blue uniform like his sister, but his was in the style of a suit as opposed to Elizabeth's dress. He gave a formal bow, then pasted a mechanical smile on his face as he righted himself. "How do you do? My name is Theodore. I would like to welcome you to the Velvet-"

"Theo," Elizabeth interrupted with a slightly exasperated look, "This is not the guest. He is merely an old friend I would like you to meet."

The silver haired man blinked at Minato, then turned his stiff gaze on his sister. "Ah… So, you mean I can…?"

"Yes," the girl replied with amusement clear in her voice, "you can drop the 'Velvet Room Assistant' act."

"Oh, thank _heavens!_" Theo immediately drooped over in a slouch that Minato approved of, while his face replaced its aloof expression with one of pure relief. "I am not sure how much longer I could have kept that up!"

Elizabeth patted him on his back comfortingly, but with a troublesome smirk painted on her face. "Get used to it, brother dear!" she chirped. "After all, your real guest shall be coming within the hour!"

"Oh, _no!_" Theo gasped. "You cannot be serious! An _hour_?!"

"Well, now less than an hour."

Poor Theo looked shell-shocked. "B-but that is so soon!"

"Indeed!"

"A-and it is not my personality to be so distant… and formal… and… and distant! How did you do it, Elizabeth?"

"I did not!"

"She didn't."

"She was quite… disrespectful of the Velvet Room regulations in that regard."

Theo gaped at the three who answered his question, flicking his gaze between a grinning Elizabeth, a bemused Minato, and a vaguely mischievous Igor in quick succession. He then promptly collapsed into a chair (one that Minato could have sworn hadn't been there a moment earlier) and plopped his head onto his folded arms on the table. "I do believe that this ordeal might kill me."

"Oh, do not be like that! I get enough drama from this fool here." The silver-haired girl flicked Minato on the forehead as an indicator, and Minato gave her a flat look in response.

"Ah, you two seem close," Theo said, rising his head up from his arms a little. "I presume you two are… what is the word… dating?"

The two in question shared a look, before simultaneously shaking their heads in a negative. "No way!" "Nope."

"The topic came up many years ago, but-"

"She can't dress normally -"

"-he refuses to do _anything _to his hair-"

"-hates all good movies-"

"-believes that 'staying inside' is an equivalent to 'going out'-"

"-has an unhealthy attachment to fake takoyaki-"

"-is already in a committed relationship with his MP3 player-"

"All right, enough! Please! I understand!" Theo pleaded, diving his head back into his arms and somehow sinking lower than previously to drown out the other two.

Elizabeth and Minato shared a smirk over Theo's discomfort, and the girl floated off the wall to 'comfort' her brother further while Minato got up and dusted himself off. However, after a moment, he realized that someone was watching him. He looked up to see the Velvet Room's elderly proprietor staring at him, beckoning the boy over to the familiar cobalt blue table. But the grey-eyed boy simply shook his head and pointed to the large difference in 'height' between the table and his wall.

"Igor, if I'm way over here, then I'm not close enough to you to sit at the taaa-!"

In the middle of the boy's sentence, Igor had unclasped his hands from their usual position underneath his chin and made a clapping motion, stopping just before his hands touched each other. The elevator's walls suddenly began approaching at an alarming rate, making Minato let out a yelp and worry about becoming the only red stain in the blue room. Fortunately, the walls' acceleration stopped just before his head reached the circular table.

Minato took a moment to catch his breath, clutching his chest as he restarted his heart. "Do you do this often?" he asked with a glower at Igor, and moved his hand to point at the other two in the room, still locked in conversation. "They didn't even react!"

"Perhaps, perhaps not," Igor replied with his trademark smile morphing into a very light smirk.

The two stared at each other, Minato's unimpressed look with narrowed eyes contrasting perfectly with Igor's bulging, bloodshot eyes. After a moment, Minato chuckled and slouched back in his chair. "Heh, it's good to see you again, Igor."

"The same to you, Minato. Things are rarely boring when you're involved, and I am intrigued to see what this… _new _year shall bring."

"…I guess that brings us to our first question," Minato said, returning his face to its more usual, serious expression. "Just how much did you have to do with my return to this… time, I guess? And also, why am I on the wall?"

"Regarding your second question, the Velvet Room simply reflects your current situation, the sum-total of all possibilities that you might experience," Igor explained. "Due to your knowledge of one possible future, you are currently in a different… _position _than the last time you entered this room. I presume that is simply reflected in your different position in this Velvet Room. Now, as for your _first _question," Igor's grin widened ever-so-slightly here, "What makes you think I have anything to do with your return?"

Minato rolled his eyes. "Igor, do we really have time to play games? Hamu's coming soon, right?"

"And there, we come to the crux of our issue: your sister, Hamuko." Igor's grin also faded into his normal smile, less mirthful than before. "I presume you know what happens in this original timeline?"

"…Hm. Hamu becomes this time's great seal, and I'm left alone. …Again."

"You are half right. But you are not alone in the end," Igor corrected. "You still have all of your friends at S.E.E.S. by your side."

"Ah, right." Minato murmured. "I'm not alone. That's… a strange thought to have."

"I presume this will not change anything?"

"Oh, don't insult me," Minato scoffed. "The plan is to stop the Fall from even beginning to happen, of course that won't change my plan."

"But Minato, what if you fail?"

Minato blinked.

"…I am afraid that this is a matter that must be given some thought," Igor said with a light sigh, closing his eyes for a brief, surprising second. "What if you are unable to convince your friends that obliterating the Arcanas is a mistake? What if one of you dies? Heavens forbid it, but what if your _sister_ dies?"

"You know something," Minato cut in, words sharp as he leaned forward. "Igor, _what do you know?_"

A light hand fell on the boy's shoulder, and he turned in surprise. Theo was looking at him worriedly, but Elizabeth was gently smiling at him as she squeezed his shoulder in comfort.

"I know nothing, Minato," the old man replied calmly. "I merely see possibilities, and those are all possible futures now, just as the always were and shall be."

"…Right, right," Minato muttered, falling back in his chair again. "…Sorry."

"It is quite all right," Igor assured him. "It only speaks highly of you that you are willing to speak up like that on behalf of your friends."

Igor reached under the table as he continued to speak. "Now, onto other pressing matters." He withdrew a familiar golden key, and held it up for Minato to see. "As you can see, this is the Velvet Room key. However, this is the only copy we have, and while you are the Velvet Room's valued _friend_, you are not our valued _guest_. That honor, of course, belongs to your sister."

"So," Minato started, "What you're saying is that I won't be able to enter the Velvet Room whenever I wish?"

"Spot on, as always."

"...Can't you just make a copy?" the boy muttered. Then he blinked as he came to a realization. "Wait a minute… Elizabeth, is that why you can only leave the Velvet Room when you're going to go on one of our dates? Because otherwise you'll be _locked out?"_

The girl cast a dirty look at her superior, who was smiling with a barely-visible lack of repentance in his smile. "Yes. It is." She replied shortly. "And I've always told him to leave the door open a tad, but he refuses to do so. At least I get to tell him off for it later."

"...Ah, but how those few hours of quiet are entirely worth the earful I get later…"

"What did you say?!"

"In answer to your question, Minato," Igor continued, not even acknowledging Elizabeth's comment as she glared at him. "Yes. You may not enter the Velvet Room as you please. However, once per month, the doors of the velvet room shall open for you and you alone, and your soul shall be welcome in the Velvet Room during that time."

"When?"

"Ah, that is up to you to decide."

"Hm… I won't be able to change it later, will I?"

"I am afraid not, and no one here will be able to take you into the Velvet Room aside from that time either. What you decide now is what you must abide by for the rest of your time here. After all, you must accept full responsibility for your actions… correct?"

Minato chuckled. "Yeah, I got it." He thought for a few moments, resting his head on his chin in the traditional 'thinker' pose. "Then… how about after each full moon battle? I can ask for your help or advice if one of us gets seriously injured."

"Brilliant!" Elizabeth clapped her hands in delight. "Just the sort of logic I expected from you!"

"Now, I assume our business here is done?" Minato asked, sharing a quick, amused glance with Igor as Elizabeth pouted at Minato's non-reaction to her comment.

Igor nodded. "Indeed. Time-"

"-marches on in my world, I know," Minato interrupted with a light smirk sneaking onto his face. Igor narrowed his eyes by the slightest margin and began to unclasp his hands again.

"…Igor, I do know my way out," the boy said cautiously as the old man slowly extended his fingers at him.

"Oh, I know," he replied, slightly widening his grin. "But I… _prefer _to do it this way."

"Bye, Minato! See you next month!" Elizabeth called out, waving her hands with enthusiasm approaching Hamuko's.

"It was a pleasure meeting you, Minato-kun!" Theo called from his seat at the table.

Then, Igor's hand extended fully. Before Minato had the chance to reply to the siblings, he shot backwards, knocking his chair over. As he flew through the doors that barely opened in time to accommodate his rocketing body, he felt himself blacking out, and the blue of the Velvet Room soon faded into darkness.

* * *

"…You _do_ know something, don't you?" Elizabeth asked quietly after Minato had been ejected from the room, and she lowered her arms from their waving positions.

"I spoke the truth," Igor replied simply as two of the Velvet Room siblings turned to face him. "I do not 'know' things in the future, I merely see possibilities."

He let out the smallest sigh, and readjusted the handkerchief resting in his suit coat's front pocket as he shut his eyes. "However, I am afraid that the one possibility he will never even consider… is the very one that shall befall him."

* * *

**AN: Sorry for the shorter chapter this week! But the next one is pretty big, so you can look forward to that.**

**I'm also clearly adding my own spin to the Velvet Room here, but please let me know if I've added something that conflicts with canon!**

**Also, I love how many questions about Minato's persona I'm getting. Trust me guys, I wish I could tell you as well, but you'll have to wait… (And for better or worse, you'll have to wait a **_**while**_**, so… sorry!)**

** Shout outs to: **_**veesmaster**_**, **_**mitsuhide**_**, **_**Nunas The No Name**_**, **_**I JUST CANT EVEN DECIDE**_**, **_**Bluestorm1990**_**, and **_**Angevon**_** for following; **_**mitsuhide**_**, **_**Roy-AoiryuuX23**_**, **_**PokerNick**_**, **_**Nunas The No Name**_**, **_**I JUST CANT EVEN DECIDE**_**, and **_**Wsadxd25**_** for faving; and **_**Petrichor in May**_**, **_**emelian65**_**, **_**Chris ShadowMoon**_**, **_**Hoshiro Raider**_**, **_**Doom Marine 54**_**, and **_**Gue3t**_** for reviewing!**

**[In response to gue3t: You'll have to wait and see Persona-wise… but I'm glad you like the normal character better than the OP one, so do I!]**

** Now, it's time for another exciting edition of…**

* * *

_**MYTHOLOGY CORNER!**_

_**[WARNING: GREEK MYTHOLOGY IS M-RATED!]**_

_**Polydeuces:**_

**Who was he?**** P**_**olydeuces**_**, also called Pollux, was one of the famous hero-twins of Greek mythology, often called the Dioskouri or Tyndaridae in Greek, and the Castores or Gemini in Latin (The other twin was named Castor… Sound familiar?). As usual, there isn't one definitive version of the twins' tales or their origins. However, one popular version states that, although they were twins, they had differing heritage: They shared the same mother (Leda), but Polydeuces was a son of Zeus (lead god and ruler of the heavens), while Castor's father was Tyndareus (a King of Sparta). The differing heritage was due to Zeus, of course: He seduced (read: screwed) Leda in the form of a swan on the same night that she also banged her husband Tyndareus. Due to this, she gave birth to twins with differing parents. (Additionally, she later birthed Helen (of Troy) and Clytemnestra (who became the wife and murderer of Agamemnon).)**

**The twins went on many adventures and quests together, the most famous being their participation in Jason's quest for the Golden Fleece as two of the Argonauts. After many of their travels, the brothers decided that they'd like wives. But instead of marrying like normal people, they decided to abduct two women, Phoebe and Hilaeria. The twins stole the girls back to Sparta, and later, they bore each hero a son.**

**Through a series of confusing events relating to this abduction, the twins participated in a battle where Castor was mortally wounded. As he was dying, Polydeuces was given a choice by Zeus: either let Castor die and gain full immortality for himself, or give up half of his immortality for his brother so that they could share the time between Olympus and the Underworld together. In a rare showing of selflessness in Greek mythology, Polydeuces opted for sharing his immortality, and they became the constellation Gemini. During the night, they can be seen on Olympus in the night sky as stars, but during the day, they stay unseen in the underworld.**

_**Why is he Akihiko's initial persona?**_** [SPOILERS AHEAD!] Well, there's not much to say here. If you haven't already guessed, it's because of his connection to Shinji. Shinji's persona is Castor, the twin that died, and thus Akihiko's persona being Polydeuces foreshadows his survival, and his turmoil over Shinji's death. Unfortunately, unlike the "real" Polydeuces, Akihiko has no relation to a god, so he must find his own way to get through the pain of Shinji's death instead of becoming a star (Although, interestingly, one of Akihiko's arcanas is the star (the other being the Emperor)… so maybe there's something to say for that).**

* * *

**So, what'd you guys think? Feel free to drop a review or send me a PM, about the story or Myth Corner!**

**Tune in next week for the story of… Penthesilea! And one last trip to the hospital with a certain pair of blue and red-haired characters.**

**Thanks for reading, and I'll see you all next week!**


	9. Chapter 9

_Chapter 9_

"No, Shoji, I'm not leaving the room!"

"Mitsu-chan-"

"Don't call me that!"

"You call me Shoji, I call you Mitsu-chan. He's not hearing this, anyways. And you can't stay here while I'm finishing this cast!"

"I own this hospital, Shoji!"

"Your _Father _owns this hospital. And you can be damn sure he's doin' the paperwork if I get slammed for keepin' you in here with another patient."

It's probably enough to say that Mitsuru was in no mood to play games.

She was being totally petulant, for sure, sulking in the corner chair with arms and legs crossed after a fitful night's sleep that left her more tired than before. But her damn physician had made the executive decision to keep her here, sleeping against the stupid wall, instead of waking her up to go to school like he did with Akihiko. Then, he had the _nerve_ to be immune to her death glare, laughing it off with a '_Mitsu-chan, I was there when you _invented _your death-glare, and I can't take you seriously whenever I think of you practicing it in the mirror when you were nine.'_

_God_, what a prick!

She glowered ineffectively at the doctor as he finally finished wrapping the cast around Minato's ankle, pasting the adhesive-covered final layer around the boy's upper ankle. His work finished, Hashino took a step back to check for any imperfections, moving his eyes up and down the cast a few times. He then flicked his gaze over to Mitsuru. "Why the hell're you still here, anyways?" he drawled. "I'm not gonna let you interrogate him yet, he still needs bed rest for at least another day or so. And _you _should still be sleeping."

"I'm _fine_," Mitsuru said crossly. "And I'm not interrogating him, I'm making sure he's alright."

"Y' do remember that your style of concern sounds a lot like interrogation to us normal people, right?"

Mitsuru huffed, not even denying the accusation as Hashino continued his work. Laughing at her lack of response, he placed electrodes on the boy's exposed chest, connecting him with the newest model of vitals sensor that had been rolled into the room at some point during the night. The doctor didn't even look at the machine as he turned it on with the press of a button, and the room was filled with the sound of staccato beeps.

"…Huh."

Mitsuru looked over sharply at Hashino. "What? What's wrong?"

"Nothing's _wrong_, don't worry," the doctor said with a dismissive wave in Mitsuru's direction. "But his vitals are more similar to someone who's conscious than someone who's asleep. I guess he might have been listening after all."

Mitsuru's unease was suddenly replaced by a quiet indignation. She slowly turned her gaze onto the boy, and the beeps from the vitals sensor started speeding up.

"Arisato…? Are you awake? And if you are, just _how much did you hear?_"

The beeping intensified.

Mitsuru was secretly pleased that she hadn't totally lost her ability to be intimidating, even to the point where her glares could be felt without being seen. However, more than a little fury at him eavesdropping on their conversation overrode that feeling.

(Never mind the fact that there was no way that he could have known that it was a private conversation without eavesdropping a little bit.)

Before she could begin her cross-examination, Hashino jumped in. "Whoa there, Mits- Ah, Kirijo-san," he interjected, "let's not give my patient a heart attack just yet, alright?"

He then turned to the boy. "You can open your eyes, Minato," he assured, "I'll keep Kirijo-san away from you."

The injured boy reluctantly opened his eyes at the assurance (while Mitsuru turned her frosty gaze on her physician). Minato glanced around with a squint as he adjusted his vision to the light and absorbed his surroundings, and started to move his body around with small movements. However, he briefly froze when he tried to move his left leg.

"Yeah, you messed yourself up pretty bad, kid." Hashino motioned to the blue cast. "I've rarely seen a worse break than that, and I've seen a hell of a lotta breaks in my time."

Minato gave a slight nod from his bed to show he heard. "Where's Hamu?" he asked in a quiet tenor.

Hashino blinked in confusion, but Mitsuru cut in. "She's fine. She'll need bed rest for a few days, but she'll be alright."

"Bed rest?" Minato asked at a deceptively low volume. "Why?"

Mitsuru floundered for an instant. "Ah…" She swallowed. "She had to fight off a…"

At that instant, Mitsuru realized she had _really_ made a mistake. Telling Minato that his sister had fought off a monster was out of the question, but what else could she have fought off? An animal? A gang member? The Kirijo heir was drawing a serious blank.

Fortunately, at this moment, Minato decided to take pity on her. "Did she fight off a monster?"

Mitsuru blinked. "…What?"

"A monster. One with no body, a massive amount of arms, and a blood-stained blue mask. And that was about one story tall."

Hashino's eyebrows rose at Minato's description, while Mitsuru looked at the boy strangely. "…Yes, but how do you-" She gasped a little, eyes widening. "You can't mean…?"

"It's the one that got me."

Mitsuru backed up and sat down in a chair, shock keeping her eyes widened. "…I assumed the smaller one had attacked him…" she muttered.

"There was more than one?"

Mitsuru actually winced at that mistake, and cursed herself. Maybe Hashino had been right when he said she was about to keel over.

"Yes, there were."

"Why did you assume the smaller one had attacked me?"

"Because you're _alive,_ Arisato."

"…Fantastic."

That little comment was a little too sarcastic for the sleep-deprived Kirijo heir to handle in a refined manner. "Yes, it is," she all but snapped at him. "Now, excuse my manners, but could you please tell me what on earth you were doing outside during the dark hour?"

Hashino quickly interjected again, sensing an impending disaster. "Hold it, Kirijo-san, I told you there'd be no interrogation today!"

Mitsuru was about to argue the point, but Minato beat her to the punch. "It's alright," the boy interjected in a more reserved tone than the doctor. "We'll have to do it sometime."

"Exactly," Mitsuru nearly crowed at the doctor, than huffed a little when she realized whom she was agreeing with. The redhead turned to the blue-haired boy, who seemed deep in thought, almost like he was having an inner debate, his eyes focusing on his lap while his hands rested on his chin and elbow.

"…I heard the monster from far away, and I was going to stop it. I didn't realize anyone else was awake during that hour."

Hashino's eyebrows shot up even further, and Mitsuru choked on air. "What?!"

"I was trying to help."

"I understand that! What did you say before that?!"

"I didn't realize others like me existed." Minato said simply, seemingly oblivious to the others' stupefied looks. "I thought I was the only one."

Mitsuru was once again filled with dread, but of a different kind than earlier. "You don't mean… this has been happening for a while now?"

Minato nodded, and the room fell into a stunned silence.

The redhead was totally flabbergasted, and some small part of her subconscious had to remind her to close her jaw from her amazement before she started drooling. "How… how long has this been happening?" she asked weakly.

"A little over a month now," Minato immediately replied, lowering his hands to his lap while his companions almost had coronaries. "Most nights it's relatively quiet, but occasionally… something attacks."

"And you just… fight it off?" This time it was Hashino asking the incredulous question, being in a similar state of mind to Mitsuru.

Minato nodded. "I have some experience in kendo, and that's usually enough."

"What about your sister?" Mitsuru pressed. "Was she awake?"

"…No," Minato replied in an even more subdued voice. "She wasn't, but those monsters seemed to be attracted to that… coffin… that she was trapped in." He clenched his fists, grasping the sheets tightly. "I just try to keep them away from her. It's all I can… _could_ really do." He glanced down at his casted leg, traces of frustration stealing onto his face.

It wasn't often that Mitsuru found herself beyond the capacity for words. But the boy in front of her, _and _his sister to boot, had completely defied her expectations. Hamuko displayed no dark-hour adjustment symptoms, an immediate aptitude for persona summoning (without any training!), and the ability to summon more than one persona. But her brother had been awake during the dark hour for over a month, and had _survived on his own_, even while protecting his sister's coffin from shadows, with just a preliminary knowledge of kendo.

Just who the hell were these twins?!

The taller twin suddenly broke into her thoughts. "So, what's going on?"

…Ok, so he was a little blunt. But Mitsuru was used to that.

The redhead took a deep breath and briefly closed her eyes, mentally rehearsing her pre-written explanation for a moment. "Would you believe that there are more than twenty-four hours in a day?"

"Senpai, that was one of the first things I noticed."

Mitsuru opened her eyes again. _Alright, screw the script_.

"That hour between the days is called the dark hour," Mitsuru informed. "A secret hour hidden between midnight and 12:01. You've noticed that electronics don't work, and that monsters appear. We call them shadows, and we know that they seem to attack only humans."

"That's how The Lost happen, right?"

The Kirijo heir glanced at the boy in surprise. "Precisely. How did you know?"

Minato froze for a moment, looking almost… scared. "Ah… I saw it happen." He looked away from the other two for a moment, reaching across his body to grasp his shoulder. "It only took a moment for that one man, but it was still terrifying."

"That's why you tried to protect your sister? To make sure she didn't turn into a veggie?" Hashino asked, with Akihiko-like tact.

Mitsuru broke her gaze away from the injured boy to give the doctor a flat look. "What?" he shrugged unrepentantly. "It doesn't change what happens to the Lost, no matter how y' phrase it."

"I agree with Hashino-san, actually," Minato told her, and she could have sworn she saw the beginnings of a smirk on his face when she turned back around. However, any evidence was quickly swept away by his usual blank expression.

The redhead studied his face for a moment longer. Seeing no further change, she pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. "Well, _however _you say it, yes. Shadows seem to feed on human emotion or thought, so victims of a shadow attack are left in the near-catatonic state of The Lost. We…" she hesitated for a split second, "…aren't entirely sure why they exist, or how they came to be. Are you following so far?"

Minato nodded slowly. "Yeah… I just need a minute to process."

"Good!" Hashino interrupted in his deep bass. "Then I can finish up my examination while you're thinkin' it over."

"Hashino-san-" Mitsuru began, but the doctor shook his head.

"No, Kirijo-san, I need to finish this up now. I've already been pushing the limits of my contract by not doing a basic examination of Minato before fixing him up, and I need to do that, STAT."

"He'll be fine, and I-"

"_Mitsuru_," he interrupted, using what the Kirijo heir immediately recognized as his no-nonsense voice, "I've been very tolerant, but you'll have to go outside. Please leave the room. _Now._"

Leave it to Mitsuru's second father figure to talk her down. She got up with a huff, and retreated- no, _led a tactical fallback_, into the hallway outside. The Kirijo heir sat down on a nearby bench with crossed legs and arms, just like earlier, and stared stubbornly at the door she'd just left. She was going to wait out there to finish her questioning, doctor's orders be damned.

Hashino might be able to lead Mitsuru to water. But he sure as hell couldn't make her drink.

* * *

Minato was sincerely thankful for Mitsuru's tired state, because hewas making as many mistakes as her.

Everything he'd told them about his past "experience" with the dark hour had been a lie, of course, and he couldn't quite repress the flare of guilt that sparked in his chest when he saw his former teammate's eyes widen in disbelief at his story. He'd come up with the idea a couple days ago, thinking it would kill two birds with one stone: it would explain just _why the hell_ he'd been outside in the dark hour, and it'd explain any strange amount of combat readiness he had.

However, while he'd guessed that his guilt would make the lie a little harder to tell, he never thought that he'd have to tell the fib when he was coming out of anesthesia. His sluggish mind could only keep up with so much, and he knew that he'd: a) hesitated too long before telling the lie, b) replied too quickly about the how long he'd been awake in the dark hour, c) overacted when talking about "protecting his sister," and d) had accidentally revealed he knew shadows were related to The Lost. And that wasn't even considering his poorly timed sarcasm.

He was pretty sure that the exhausted Kirijo had been fooled, but he wasn't sure about Hashino. The doctor, who Minato had recognized as the same one Hamuko had bumped into a few days earlier, gave no outward signs of comprehension (or _apprehension_), but Minato knew all too well that first looks were usually deceiving.

Having said that, Minato couldn't help but be impressed with Hashino's dismissal of the stubborn redhead. He looked in the direction of the door, feeling something approaching awe rise in him when there came no signs of Mitsuru re-entering the room.

"Impressed?" the doctor asked, watching Minato look at the door as he rummaged through a medical drawer.

"Yeah," the boy replied. "I assumed she'd only listen to a someone like a drill sergeant."

Hashino laughed a little as he approached Minato, this time holding a blood-pressure monitor. "Nah, she wouldn't listen to them either. She's used to 'em."

Minato raised a questioning eyebrow as the doctor wrapped the device around his arm. "I mean she's been surrounded by drill sergeants her whole life." the doctor explained.

That didn't really answer Minato's question. He kept his face in the same questioning look, and Hashino chuckled when he saw it. "Oh, right, I suppose you wouldn't know."

He was quiet for a moment while he started pumping the device, and it began to constrict around Minato's arm. "The grand majority of people in the Kirijo group are ex-military. With a couple exceptions, everyone hired under the previous boss used to kill for a job."

"Why?" Minato questioned quietly as the doctor slowly let the air out of the device.

"Ask anyone else, and they'll say 'reliability and real-world experience.' But having personally known the older, _most esteemed_ Kirijo-sama, I can pretty safely say it was more about obedience to authority."

"…Then, what about you?"

"Yeah, I did too." Hashino unstrapped the device, accompanied by the ripping sound of unlatching Velcro, and put it back in its drawer. "I was a doctor in the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force. Got a huge break when the Kirijo group offered me a job after I got outta the UNTAC situation."

"UNTAC?"

"UNTAC means United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia. In '91, the UN set up a de facto government in Cambodia to help with the creation of a new one, and they roped in many of their member states to help 'em out to some degree. Japan provided, among other things, some troops like me."

Minato remained silent after that, watching Hashino absently play with a thermometer he had grabbed from the countertop. He came to his senses after a moment, and gave his charge an amused look. "Look at you, gettin' me to ramble like I'm more senile than I really am."

Minato shrugged a little. He hadn't really _done _anything; the topic was just an interesting one that Hashino apparently liked to talk about.

The greying brunet stuck the thermometer under Minato's tongue, where the boy held it until a beeping sounded. "97.7 degrees Farenheight; that's 36.5 Celsius," he muttered. "Pretty low body temperature." He tossed out the small plastic strip covering part of the thermometer with a flick of his finger, and went over to his cabinet to put the device away.

At the same time, a thought suddenly occurred to Minato. "Why'd Mitsuru-senpai have to leave?"

"Glad you asked! Strip for me."

Minato blinked.

Hashino turned his head around with a mischievous grin slowly growing on his face. "I need an accurate assessment of your weight, and I can't do that with you wearing clothes. So take your pants off and get over here, kid."

Well, _that_ topped the list of things Minato never again wanted to hear in a gruff bass.

Regardless, the boy obliged. He was soon wheeling his IV drip over to the weighing machine, only his blue boxers still attached to his skinny frame after he'd removed the electrodes that Hashino had put on earlier. As Minato stepped up to the weighing machine, the doctor held his hand up. "Hold up, let's wait for this thing to get calibrated first."

Minato nodded and waited. After a moment, Hashino motioned for him to step on the weighing machine, but Minato's mind was already elsewhere as he stepped on. He'd just learned that most of the Kirijo group was ex-military of some kind, but who he was really wondering about was…

"Alright, out with it, Minato."

The blue-haired boy looked over at the doctor, who was looking at Minato with amusement. "Huh?"

"You looked like you were musing pretty hard. And I get the feeling you _always_ look like you're musing, so this must be pretty big."

"…I was just wondering… you said _almost _everyone worked for the military…"

"Ah, so who doesn't?" Hashino tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Well, the percentage has gone down drastically since Kirijo-sama-senior died. But for people you know… well, there's Mitsuru, who's sorta employed by the Kirijo group, there's Takeharu -you know, the current _Kirijo-sama-_ ...let's see, who else…" the doctor pondered for a second or two longer before his look darkened. "Well, there's also Ikutsuki."

It took all of Minato's willpower (with a little help from the anesthesia) to not jerk up at that name. And despite that, he was pretty sure he still twitched. "Isn't he the chairman of Gekkokaun?"

"And your dorm advisor, which is why I remembered him." Hashino blew out a breath. "That guy…"

Minato stilled as he waited for an explanation, and Hashino soon complied. "He wasn't JSDF, but in some ways, he's had it worse than those in it. He was in the Peace Corps, and his last deployment was for the 2004 Indian Ocean quake and tsunami. He was sent to Indonesia, the country hit hardest by the wave, and he was… well, affected by what he saw. I can't say anymore, for doctor-patient confidentiality reasons."

"…Then why are you telling me this?"

Hashino turned to the boy on the scale, a grim look etched on his face. "Because I was the one who did his standard examinations before and after his job acceptance at the Kirijo group. And I don't care what the other Kirijos say: there's _no way_ anyone in Ikutsuki's state could suddenly become 'alright' within a matter of weeks. I don't know what's going on, but there's no way he's entirely mentally stable."

He let out another breath, probably realizing he was getting a little too worked up. "It's just… so _stupid _that they've not only let him work, but also put him in charge of a _student dorm_." A small, sardonic smile appeared on his face as he finally answered Minato's question. "I guess you just seemed like someone who'd listen… since no one else seems like they'd believe it."

Minato glanced away from the doctor. He couldn't really argue with that one.

Hashino shook his head a little after that, before smiling a little more naturally at the boy. "Heh. Sorry for boring you with that stuff, kid. Lemme take your weight and height and I'll leave you in peace." He snagged his ever-present clipboard from the counter with one hand, and quickly marked Minato's weight while he also dragged a height-measuring stick from the weighing machine upwards, and soon marked that on the clipboard as well.

"Alright, that's all you'll get out of me for now." He draped his lab coat over his shoulder as he started trudging towards the exit. "Hope you feel better."

He laid a hand on the doorframe as he passed, but just before leaving, the doctor hesitated and turned around with a strange look on his face. "Actually, one last thing… are you gonna tell your friends about _that?_" He motioned vaguely at Minato.

"…I'd rather they not know," the boy responded minutely. "It'll only make them worry."

The doctor exhaled loudly through his nose, focusing on some nondescript part of the wall as he muttered, "Great, another one." Minato opened his mouth to say something like '_what?'_, but Hashino continued onwards. "Takeharu told me… nah, _ordered _me specifically not to tell the other members of S.E.E.S. anything you don't want them to know, especially about your past. Because, apparently, we can't have just _one _Kirijo with a misplaced sense of guilt." Hashino turned back to Minato with a grimly intent face. "Listen. I won't tell them, but just because you don't want someone to worry doesn't mean that they won't. And sometimes, you _need_ people to worry for you. Don't be so preoccupied with helping others that you forget yourself. Also… sometimes, kid, the best help you can give someone is a person to care for. Take it from a war-time doctor."

With that parting statement, Hashino left the room with a swish of his unequipped coat and the _clack _of a closed door. Minato let himself sink back into his fluffy white pillows, thinking and undergoing more than a little bit of emotional turmoil. That last comment had hit a little too close to home, echoing the last words that a certain friend of his had told him before his ascension.

Minato breathed out and closed his eyes. Unfortunately for that friend and Hashino (and everyone else), there _were _some things that only he could do this time around.

He shook his head a little. That turmoil could wait. Right now… he had some serious thinking to do.

* * *

**AN: Sorry for the late update****, and sorry if the quality's a little lower than normal! I'm in a hurry to get this out, so I didn't have much time to proofread or edit it.**  


**Huge shout-out to Chris ShadowMoon for giving me the fantastic idea of what lie Minato should tell Mitsuru! I was gonna put something much lamer instead, so serious kudos to that awesome mind of his!**

** Also, since I bet some people are gonna wonder: I actually didn't make any of the historical information up (to the best of my knowledge)! I'm not gonna describe it in too much detail here, but the Japanese Air Force is actually called the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force (JASDF), and the Japanese military is called the JSDF. UNTAC and the 2004 Indian Ocean quake were real, too. Look them up if you'd like some more detail!**

**Shout outs to: ****_rickyp01_, _CometGlider007_, _devout heretic_, _Sensa_, _Ookami of Chaos_, _No-Story_, _naz290_, _Grokon12_, silthara, and _Xenertor_ for following; _Terminus Ashbell_, _Kanjilearner3309_, _CometGlider007_, _Ookami of Chaos_, _naz290_, _Grokon12_, _silthara_, and _Lucifer-Light Bringer_ for faving; and _emelian65_, _Asahar4_, _Hoshiro Raider_, _Slyr3x_, _Nunas The No Name_, _Petrichor in May_, and _Gue3t_ for reviewing!**  


**[In response to Gue3t: Haha yeah man, I know. And I'm actually leaving out some of the worst things, too, so you can only imagine what **_**that's**_** like!] **

**Before this week's edition of Myth Corner, one last thing: I'm not gonna be able to guarantee weekly updates after this week…**

**Here's the deal. I'm working at a summer camp right now, and some weeks, I'm gonna be gone for the whole week, meaning no computer access. I'd let you guys know when I'm gonna be out each week, but the way this camp works, I usually won't know the next week's schedule until after Wednesday… meaning that there's no way for me to let you guys know if next week's one where I'm gonna be out. Additionally, this job's gonna take up a lot of the time I'd usually spend writing, so I'm not gonna be as efficient in that regard either.**

**(Also: I'm gonna be AFK Thursday and Friday, so the earliest I'll be able to respond to your reviews and PM's is Saturday.)**

**Sorry again guys! Send me a PM or let me know in a review if you need me to clarify anything relating to that.**

**Now, on that note…**

* * *

_**MYTHOLOGY CORNER!**_

_**Penthesilea**_

_**Who was she?**_** Penthesilea was a queen of the Amazons, an all-female society who flipped the "traditional" role of women in Ancient Greek society (being totally submissive to the patriarchal Greeks) by being the dominant gender. Their name's origin is (**_**shocker**_**) contested. But one derivation refers to the Ancient Greek term for "No-breast" (A-mazos), since it was a popular belief that the Amazons cut off or burnt out their right breast [This mythological belief most likely stemmed from the Ancient Greeks trying to distance their "proper" women from these Amazons, and did so by removing something feminine (a breast) from the mythical women].**

**Anyways, back to Penthesilea: she was the daughter of Ares (the god of War) and Otrera (the previous queen), as well as the sister of Hippolyta, Antiope, and Melanippe. Her story stems from a dramatic hunting accident. While out hunting, she accidentally speared her sister Hippolyta, who shortly thereafter died. Of course, poor Penthesilea felt quite guilty about this turn of events, and actually wanted to die afterwards. However, being an Amazon and thus a warrior (not to mention a queen), she had to die honorably and in battle. Because of this, she was easily persuaded to join the Trojan War and fight on the side of the Trojans. For those who don't know (SPOILERS, for a nearly 3000 year old story), the Trojans lost the war, and thus, so did Penthesilea and the Amazons that participated in the War. The Amazonian queen herself was killed in battle by Achilles, the nearly invincible "greatest of the Achaeans," who was apparently enamored with her, despite them being enemies. Some versions of the story actually show Achilles treating her with respect and holding her up as she went to Hades… although, having said that, it's probably important to mention that other versions of the story say that he raped her dead body. So… yeah.**

_**Why is she Mitsuru's initial persona?**_** [Spoilers, as usual] Like with Akihiko, it's relatively self-explanatory. Penthesilea and Mitsuru both share guilt over something that wasn't entirely their fault: Mitsuru believes that she must single-handedly right all of the wrongs of the Kirijo group, while Penthesilea holds all the guilt for her accident. (You could argue that it was Penthesilea's fault she killed her sister, but at the end of the day, it was an accident, and thus she shouldn't consider it "murder" per se).**

**Moreover, they also become depressed after the death of a close family member. Mitsuru becomes depressed over her Father's death, while Penthesilea (obviously) is depressed over the death of her sister.**

…**Not much else to say, really.**

* * *

**Phew! That'll be the last mythology corner until we introduce Tartarus. Next week (er, maybe?)… We're back at school, and a character from P3P is introduced!**

**If you've got the time, please drop a review or send a PM. Thanks for reading, and hopefully I'll see you next week!**


	10. Chapter 10

_Chapter 10_

_Clack._

Minato.

_Clack._

Hated.

_Clack._

This.

He could deal with shadows. He could deal with apocalyptic cult groups. He could even deal with chaperoning Junpei and Kenji on all-you-can-eat ramen night.

What he couldn't deal with? Crutches.

This sentiment was apparently radiating off him, since the large group of wide-eyed, whispering students at Gekkoukan parted before him as he _clacked_ his way past the front gates. Hopping his way through the crowd, he saw a familiar brunette standing with a group of similarly well-dressed girls, shock and blatant interest coloring the other girls' faces. He'd (thankfully) managed to convince Yukari to _not_ help him get to school by subtly reminding her that Gekkoukan's rumor-loving students would eat that up like nothing else (in fewer words, of course). Currently, however, the girl had contrasting looks of apprehension and guilt warring on her face, probably seeing the culmination of her failures from two nights ago in the injured boy.

He'd have to talk with her about that, he lamented inwardly. Unless he could let Hamuko take care of that…

_"Isn't that the new transfer student?"_

_"Yeah, the broody guy with the super-cute sister."_

_"What happened to him?"_

_"Dunno. But where's his sister?"_

_"Well, if he's like that, do you think… she got hospitalized?!"_

_"She was?!"_

_"Yeah, she was totally hospitalized!_"

…and speaking of his sister, she was already the hot topic of the flighty rumor mill that was the heart and soul of Gekkoukan. Minato could've laughed out loud when he heard the adolescent masses on the lawn inadvertently come to the right conclusion about Hamuko's condition… although it got progressively less accurate as it spread.

_"What do you think happened to her?"_

_''Could it have been a car crash?"_

_"What about a bus?"_

_"Or a gang."_

_"Is she even… alive?"_

_"What?! She's dead?!"_

_"Yeah! I heard she was killed by a bus full of gangsters!"_

Minato's lips twitched upwards the smallest amount at the last half-whispered rumor. Fortunately, since he was already climbing the steps to the main entrance, no one saw his moment of weakness.

Just as he passed through the front doors, the first bell rang. Minato blew out an exasperated sigh as the other students, suddenly in a mass panic, raced past him and up the stairs, more than one nearly colliding with him. Disregarding the others' hurry, he meandered towards the elevator and pressed the button, entering when the doors opened with a _ding! _The machine slowly lifted him upward, and let him know they had arrived at the proper floor with another singular, friendly ring.

Only a year of shadow-fighting reflexes let him narrowly avoid hitting a familiar teal-haired girl, unexpectedly standing on the other side of the elevator doors.

Minato had already been swinging forward on his crutches when the doors opened, so he quickly shot his uninjured foot towards the edge of the elevator's door to stop his momentum. That worked fine, but in her surprise, Fuuka had let go of her backpack, which she'd been holding at waist height to rummage through. Fortunately, Minato already had his right hand in motion. Supporting himself using one crutch and his extended foot, he dropped the other crutch and sent his hand flying forward to snatch the bag, while the dropped crutch lazily fell sideways and lay to rest on Minato's left arm.

All of that had taken about half a second. It took Fuuka about twice as long to close her mouth from her shock.

She muttered the quickest 'thank-you' Minato had ever heard, and grabbed her bag and disappeared into room 2-E faster than should have been humanly possible. Although it wasn't _quite_ fast enough for Minato to miss the bright red blush splashed across her cheeks. He blew out another sigh as he readjusted his crutches and exited the elevator, just before the doors closed behind him. That girl was really going to make him work to get her to open up, wasn't she?

Well. Minato could deal with that.

He hobbled his way into the same class, and awkwardly sidled past all the desks in his way until he reached his own. Falling into his own seat heavily, he checked his peripheral vision for his technologically savvy future-friend. Said friend was still totally mortified, her face continuing to be a brighter red than Trismegistus as she stared determinedly forward, not even acknowledging Minato's existence when he fully turned his head towards her.

_Hmm…_

He could try talking to her, but that would never work; She'd just clam up. However, Minato knew Fuuka was smart, and he'd never seen her neglect anyone in need. So maybe if he got called on…

After that thought, the late bell rang, and a moment later a female teacher with a white blazer and dark undershirt walked into class. The blue-haired boy immediately recognized her as Ms. Ounishi, the science teacher. She sat down in Ekoda's chair and set her bag down, then extracted a large biology book and set it down on the desk with a dull _thud_.

…Uh oh.

Minato remembered that Fuuka's parents were pretty distinct among the rest of the Yamagishi family for not becoming doctors, instead becoming engineers. But because of that, Fuuka had never liked biology: the subject reminded her of her parent's semi-secret embarrassment about choosing another field over a medical one. Unfortunately, biology was also one of the few subjects that Minato wasn't particularly well versed in, since back in the day, he'd been able to leave most of the important, technical biology knowledge and training tips up to Akihiko.

Of course, that meant that neither of them was likely to know the answer to any questions.

Minato inwardly grimaced and crossed his fingers under his desk as Ms. Ounishi stood up. "Alright class, settle down," she called out, and waited patiently as the class slowly quieted their conversations. "Today we'll be talking about muscular hypertrophy and atrophy, so let's start off with the basics. Both muscular hypertrophy and atrophy predominantly refer to 'skeletal muscle.' That's simply the muscle that you voluntarily control, unlike the cardiac muscle that controls your heart or the smooth muscle that lines many of your internal organs and blood vessels."

The teacher picked up a piece of chalk and began drawing a quick diagram on the board, starting with a sketch of a normal-looking stick figure. "Now, muscular hypertrophy is essentially 'muscle growth,' or any time that skeletal muscle cells increase in size." She scrawled out a stick figure with cartoonishly massive arms to one side of the original figure, and drew an arrow connecting them labeled _hypertrophy_.

"Similarly, muscular atrophy refers to a decrease in muscle mass." Here, she sketched a stick figure who was hunched over, one stick-arm holding his back while the other held a small cane to support him, and drew another arrow (labeled _atrophy_) connecting the original figure and this one. "For example, muscular hypertrophy can occur when undergoing weight training or taking steroids, while muscular atrophy can occur to people who neglect their bodies and is common among the elderly. Now, with that information, can anyone guess what muscular _dys_trophy is? How about…"

She scanned the congregation of students sitting in rows, and laid her eyes to rest on Minato.

_Aw, crap!_

"How about you, Arisato-kun?"

Minato slowly stood up as he racked his mind for the right answer. _Dys- _was a prefix that usually meant something bad or ill, and the suffix _-trophy _was clearly related to growth of some kind. So, maybe _muscular dystrophy _meant bad muscle growth?

He was about to guess that out loud, but an unfamiliar voice from his side whispered, "Group of muscle diseases, relating to skeletal muscle and movement."

"It's a group of muscle diseases," Minato automatically relayed, and Ms. Ounishi smiled in response.

"Very good, Arisato-kun! Muscular dystrophy is indeed a large group of muscle diseases. They usually affect the musculoskeletal system, like hypertrophy and atrophy, and thus hamper muscle locomotion. You can sit, Arisato-kun. Now, to help you learn about the different types of muscle growth, I have a set of worksheets…" Ms. Ounishi looked inside her briefcase, tilted to the side against the teacher's large desk, and frowned. "Hmm… I thought I'd copied them, but it looks like I forgot. Alright, you can go chat amongst yourselves while I get these copied. But don't get too noisy!"

With that, she swept out of the room, one copy of the worksheet held in her hand. Minato sat down and leaned back against the chair, closing his eyes as he thanked his lucky stars that he'd managed to get the right answer.

"You're welcome."

Oh, right. Maybe he should be thanking the person who gave him the answer instead.

He turned his head in the opposite direction of Fuuka to see a pale yet healthy looking girl, raven hair tied in a neat ponytail running down to her shoulder blades. Her white-sleeved arms were crossed over her cream-colored vest, and an unimpressed look painted her face.

"Thanks," Minato replied to the vaguely sarcastic comment. "And sorry, my mind was elsewhere."

The girl continued to look at him for another moment, before glancing down and softening her expression a little. "…Yeah, I guess you would have some things on your mind. It's all right."

Minato raised an eyebrow at that. "Some things…?"

"Well, your sister's in the hospital, isn't she?"

The blue haired boy shook his head a little in disbelief. Word traveled fast, huh?

"It's a shame, too," the girl said, half to herself. "I was looking forward to later."

That earned another raised eyebrow from the boy. "What do you mean?"

"She was gonna come visit the Volleyball team at practice today. She talked to me about joining yesterday, and it's rare to find anyone who's dedicated enough to join before the normal start time. I was gonna let her watch practice, if not actually join in this afternoon."

Had he been anyone else, Minato's eyebrows would've been sky high. Hamuko didn't even know about social links and their benefits, and she was already networking like a pro. The boy felt a thrum of pride pulse through him as he realized that his words to Elizabeth were already starting to come true.

_Damn, she's _really _good._

"Who are you?" Minato asked, forgoing common courtesy for efficiency as he shook himself out of his thoughts.

"Iwasaki Rio, captain of the Volleyball team," she answered promptly, totally ignoring (or not even noticing) Minato's bluntness. Said boy suddenly found a hand extending into his personal space, and realized after a second that Rio was expecting a handshake.

"Arisato Minato," he said, complying as he reached out his own hand. "You know a lot about muscles."

Rio shrugged. "Comes with the territory. I end up being the team nurse a lot of the time, since no one does the proper stretching or cool downs."

There was more than a little resentment loaded in that last comment, but Rio had already plowed onwards before Minato could ask about it. "So, you know when your sister's gonna be out?"

"…No," he lied.

Rio winced a little in response. "Oh. …Er, sorry to hear."

An awkward silence suddenly hung over the duo, while the sounds of other conversations crashed together around them. Minato risked glancing back over at Fuuka, who'd now regained her usual complexion but was still avoiding Minato's gaze like the plague.

Huh. Had he really embarrassed her that much? …Oops.

Returning to the other conversation, he decided to try and salvage what he could. "So, you met her a few days ago?"

Rio nodded. "Yup, she came to the practice itself to talk with me about joining. Apparently, the club advisor tried to tell her that it'd be impossible to join now, but she totally ignored him to come see us."

Minato almost snorted. That sounded like Hamu, alright.

"She also asked for me to look out for her brother, since he got into a lot of trouble, and she wouldn't _always _be able to look after him."

For a moment, Minato inwardly panicked at Rio's wording… before he realized that Hamu probably meant something else. Narrowing his eyes, he slowly turned to face Rio, whose face was covered by a growing smirk. "So, Minato-kun… have you been getting into trouble?"

"…Just enough." He responded shortly, and started to lean away from the girl as she began scanning his general area with the thoroughness of airport security.

"Did you bring a lunch?" she asked, and Minato could've winced. He'd planned on making one, but he'd forgotten last night, and he didn't have time to make one in the morning since it took him a while to walk to the trains with his crutches.

"I'll get something from the shop downstairs," he assured her. "Don't worry about it."

"Oh, I'm not gonna worry about it. 'Cause I'm gonna make _sure_ you buy a lunch."

The blue haired boy all but whipped his head around. "That's not necessary-"

"Yeah, yeah, I know. But this is a way to get me points with your sister, and I am _not _letting someone with dedication like that get away. So just deal with it for me, okay? I'll owe you one."

Just then, Ms. Ounishi walked in and immediately started handing out the worksheets, ruining any chance for a witty comeback like '_No.' _As the handouts started circulating towards the back of the class, Minato couldn't help but stare a little at the girl who he'd been forcefully introduced to.

Slightly manipulative, penchant for doing good, and a firm belief in what's right?

Yeah. She and Hamuko were gonna get along just fine.

* * *

Mitsuru felt a familiar wave of dread as she approached her small footlocker just outside of the school's front doors. Even from far away, she could see papers of various colors peeking out of the locker's top and bottom cracks and the vents in the middle, mocking the Kirijo heir. Mitsuru silently huffed. Did anyone _really _think they were more original than anyone else just because they got a different colorof envelope?

She arrived at her hated storage container and slowly twisted it's lock, pretending not to notice the large group of boys standing nearby, whispering and occasionally pointing in her direction. Mitsuru had to suppress an automatic glare in their direction before she traumatized them (or froze them outright). Really, they weren't even _trying_ to be subtle anymore.

She swung her locker open, and several dozen papers cascaded in a brightly colored landslide. They were love letters, of course, all different shapes, sizes, and colors, probably supposed to be sweet, cute little things meant to impress her. Mitsuru supposed that they even might have worked on other girls.

Sadly, they didn't work for her. At _all_.

Dutifully picking up the multitude of poems and prose scattered on the ground, Mitsuru was soon carrying several essays worth of handcrafted words. The whispering grew louder as she began walking to the corner of the room, her boots clicking on the polished tile floors of the school, and she promptly placed them in the place where they belonged most: the recycling bin.

_"Oh my god, did you see that?"_

_"That was brutal!"_

_"I'm so turned on right now…"_

Mitsuru twitched at that final comment. Only a decade-and-a-half of self-control training prevented that last boy from becoming a shish kabob on her hand.

It was times like these that she really wished that she could be more like Yukari. Mitsuru had worked much too long and hard on her ice-queen personality to ruin it now, but _god,_ would it be satisfying to just walk up to those damn boys and slap them for being so coarse. And things like this didn't just happen every other week, it was practically a daily ritual. It was absolutely, completely, _totally infuriating_.

Just then, an immediately recognizable brunette passed through the room, cutting through Mitsuru's thoughts. She was keeping a quick pace, with her short black skirt billowing slightly behind her, and it was easy to see why when a small group of boys chased after her into the hall. The redhead watched them go for a moment, before realizing that this was a golden opportunity for herself to escape, as well.

The locker door was quickly shut with a _snap_, and Gekkoukan's front doors flew open as the redhead evacuated the premises. A refreshing gust of wind hit her face, lightly blowing her hair back, while a small smile curved her lips upwards when she heard the belated "Hey!" as the cadre of boys inside realized that the object of their 'affections' had disappeared. Unfortunately for them, by the time they exited the building, Mitsuru had already reached the outer gates of the school and turned the corner.

As she rapidly walked by the sleek, white-bricked walls of the non-fenced part of the gate, the redhead thought of her brunette classmate. As much as it was clear that Yukari wasn't exactly fond of her Senpai (And, seriously, freight trains were subtler than that girl. It was astonishing that she didn't realize that herself!), Mitsuru couldn't really claim that she knew her kohai any better. Sure, she liked Yukari well enough from their few interactions that didn't involve Yukari's anger, but Mitsuru couldn't claim to _know _the girl. Records and data could only tell you so much, and… well, Mitsuru really wanted to help her out. God knew how much distress and havoc she and the Kirijo group had already introduced into the poor girl's life.

Suddenly, sunlight glinted off of something in the distance. A smile once again lilted upon Mitsuru's face as she instinctively knew what was reflecting the sun, and she forgot about everything else. Sure enough, as she walked into the parking lot, a motorcycle came into view, its glossy white exterior reflecting light almost better than a mirror. The Kirijo heir sighed a little in contentment as she arrived and plucked her lightly swinging helmet from its place hanging off one handlebar, running a hand down the machine's beautifully well-maintained side.

That was another thing that Mitsuru envied to some degree about Yukari: the girl's ability to just say what she thought. How many times had Mitsuru been forced to smile politely at the CEO of a major corporation and _not _tell him that he had something stuck in his teeth, or _not _tell her that her smile was obnoxiously artificial? The habit was so deeply ingrained in her by now that she even didn't mention her opinions on… well, anything, really. But even in the business world, was it really so wrong to love machines and engines instead of pretty colors or nice dresses?

All of a sudden, there came a noise that made Mitsuru's heart sink even more than the thought of cute clothes and poor dental hygiene: the sound of a limousine engine.

Oh, no. Mituru was _so _not in the mood for any corporate games now. Not today, when the sun was out, she'd finally gotten some real sleep, and her bike was sitting right next to her.

In a matter of seconds, Mitsuru had strapped her helmet onto her head with the visor down, flipped on the gas tank switch on the cycle's side, and started the engine. It roared to life for a moment, before settling down into a pleased purr as the redhead hastily checked all of the gauges to make sure everything was in working order.

Everything was, and Mitsuru broke out into a grin.

Kicking the kickstand up, she simultaneously hit the clutch with her other foot, shifting the bike from neutral into first gear. She slowly turned her wrist back, and the bike responded gleefully, growling progressively louder as Mitsuru accelerated across the parking lot. Glancing up at the rounded mirrors placed strategically at the lot's exit, Mitsuru saw no cars coming in either direction… except for a white limo that had just turned the corner and was rolling slowly towards the lot.

Later, Mitsuru would be very glad for her tinted visor, as her smile then smeared into a wicked smirk.

The engine laughed with the girl as she hit the clutch again and gunned the throttle, and redhead and her machine soared out of the lot and into an adjacent alley. Mitsuru caught a glimpse of the limo driver's surprised visage from her peripheral vision, and she only grinned wider as she realized that her escape had gone perfectly. She leaned to and fro on the cycle, and the bike weaved and swerved with her, dodging various obstacles on the mostly deserted back streets of Iwatodai as she zoomed towards her residence.

After several more minutes of euphoria, Mitsuru arrived at the familiar backside of the dorm, and she cut the motor off with a sigh. The engine whined as it slowly fell into silence, and the Kirijo heir took off her helmet slowly, shaking her hair out as the helmet came off her head.

In hindsight, running from the Kirijo babysi- er, escort wasn't the brightest move. They undoubtedly wanted a status report on the new additions to the dorm, and that was something she really needed to give them. Especially given all that she'd learned about the male Arisato a couple days ago.

In fact, she thought as she walked into dorm via the back entrance, assuming that Hamuko woke up soon, S.E.E.S. would soon be able to start exploring Tartarus, marking another reason why a report would be vital. Of course, since she'd have to be on support, and since the taller Arisato would be out of commission for who-knew-how-long, they'd be one member short of the optimal four-man party. It would be best for there to be one extra member in S.E.E.S before she had to give her monthly update and started exploring Hell itself… but, they'd all have to make do with what they had.

Unless, of course, someone else with the Potential randomly appeared.

But, really, what were the chances of _that?_

* * *

**AN: I've gotta say, treating the motorcycle like it was an animal was really, **_**really **_**fun!**

**Also, I think I got all the details right in the muscle hypertrophy/atrophy section, but if you see any mistakes, let me know!**

**Shout outs to: **_**kadesh2501**_**, **_**Humbled Writer**_**, **_**edd-ot**_**, **_**Yoshikunitsu**_**, **_**The Lonesome Bear**_**, **_**Mega122**_**, and **_**Kopitar**_** for following; **_**Litagano**_**, **_**mafia king**_**, **_**Humbled Writer**_**, **_**edd-ot**_**, **_**The Lonesome Bear**_**, **_**Draknero**_**, and **_**Kopitar**_** for faving; and **_**Doom Marine 54**_**, **_**Asahar4**_**, **_**silthara**_**, **_**Hoshiro Raider**_**, **_**Humbled Writer**_**, **_**crymblade**_**, **_**emelian65**_**, **_**gu3st**_**, **_**The Lonesome Bear**_**, and **_**Yoshikunitsu**_** for reviewing!**

**[In response to Gue3t: You're welcome! Haha yup, although it's almost par for the course when it comes to messed up Greek heroes. And yay, me too! Although, ironically, this chapter was pretty Minato-centric too. But now we're really gonna start moving away from Mina to focus on other characters. Thanks for reviewing!]**

**Sadly, I have to bring up my update schedule again: This is when it turns to crap. For every other chapter before this one, I've had the next one or two pre-written, but as of now… chapter 11 only has a couple of pages done. Blame my job (And the anime **_**Soul Eater**_**)!**

**I'm not gonna be able to guarantee regular updates at all within the next… period of time, dunno how long. What I **_**will **_**guarantee is that I'm not gonna ditch you all: no matter how long the next chapter takes, I promise I'll still be around to respond to reviews and PM's the whole time (barring hospitalization or something, of course).**

**Now, that's all I've got for you all! It seems very empty in here without Myth Corner, but we'll have another episode in a few chapters when Tartarus first formally appears in the story.**

**As always, please drop a review or send a PM if you've got the time. Thanks for reading, and hopefully I'll see you all soon!**


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